Did I get everything? Buying supplies for new bun

[skibunny8503]

I’m getting all my supplies before we go up to Gueaga Humane Society to (hopefully) adopt Archie tomorrow. I forgot to ask them how old he is, but it says adult on petfinder. 

We don’t have ANY rabbit supplies since this was a “oh he’s so cute, let’s go get him Monday!” spur of the moment thing.  I organized everything in my office to put the little guy there.  Our basement is a complete mess (we’ve been building shelves), so as soon as we finish it all, we will put him down there probably. 

I made a list of supplies to buy tomorrow and want to make sure I’m covered.  Since I have limited space for now, I’m going to get a cage and buy a small pen from Petsmart that connects to it so he can move about.  (that’s my plan anyways if I can find everything). 

A food bowl.
A water bottle.  I kind of want to stick with t he water bottle because my rabbit that is living with my parents right now (he’s 12 years old and we just moved into our own place so I didn’t want to move him) drinks from a bowl and tends to dunk his head in and we’re always drying his chin off. 
Either Cell-Sorb Plus or maybe Eco Bedding (are those both about the same because I think Eco was cheaper but I’ll have to compared).
Oxbow Bunny Basics T rabbit food.
A brush
A pretty big cage & the Large Cleaning Living Playpen.  I know my older rabbit would never walk on Linolium, concret or laminate flooring.  I have extra carpet to use for the playpen, should I use that or something else? 
A litter box. 

I know to get Timothy hay.  Do I put any other kind of hay in the cage on the floor? 

I think that’s it….I’ll get greens later this week.

[Kokaneeandkahlua]

Well I’ve never heard of those beddings before so I’m not sure about them? But it sounds like you have everything! Congrats on your new bunny and that’s awesome you are adopting-best way to go in my opinion

Is your bunny already neutered? I think the only thing your missing is toys? But you’ll maybe want to see what his ‘play style’ is first-plus theres lots of household stuff you can give him to play with too-phonebooks or toilet paper rolls

[BunnyMuffin]

It looks like you have all the essentials! If you plan to trim his nails yourself, you’ll eventually want some nail clippers, but definitely not an urgent purchase. I’m assuming the plan is to put the hay on the floor, which is fine, but didn’t want to you to forget a hay rack if that was in the plans. I’m not familiar with those beddings either.

The extra carpet for the playpen area should be fine, as long as the edges are outside of the enclosure so they don’t get chewed on and ingested.

I also bought a big ol roll of plastic aquarium tubing to bring home to cover wires when I got my first bunny. Turned out she didn’t have any interest in wires, but my second bunny sure loves them!

Good luck, let us know if it all goes smoothly!

[skibunny8503]

Beka27 told me about Cell-Sorb on a different post. I think it’s recycled compact paper? It kind of looks like little pellets, I think I’ve seen something like that in a petstore once. What do you guys use? I have my other bun’s nail clippers at my parents but I was looking at an older post about how someone said that Pedi Paws worked great. It’s always nerve racking clipping their nails! I have to go to my parents house tomorrow so I will pick up Mickey’s (my other bun) hay rack that he was never interested in. It hangs from the ceiling.
Do you guys usually line the floor with hay or any other suggestions. We always did that with Mickey because if you got a blanket he started scratching at it and I think he’d eventually start humping it…but then again he was never neutered. Haha! I think it’ll be completely different with a neutered bunny…oh yes, Archie is neutered and they said he’s also house trained.
I’m gonna have to reorganize some stuff on the our X-mas tree too.
Yeah I’ll get toys later on. I just want to get all the essentials so he’s all settled in.

I’ll let you guys know what happens! 😀

[BunnyMuffin]

I currently use Yesterdays News – which is in the cat section and is also a pellet newspaper product, so I’m sure that what you’re suggesting will work fine. But you might want to do a price comparison if they’re similar products – it seems that the stuff designed for “small animals” is a lot more expensive than similar products designed for cats. K&K also just enlightened me to the glory of wood stove pellets – which are really cheap. But I haven’t tried them yet, so I’ll leave that to her. 🙂

I don’t line the floor with anything, per say. I put litter in the litter box (obviously) with the hay rack hanging on the wall next to it so they have to eat in the box, and then their condo has a carpet floor. When I had just a standard pet store cage with a plastic bottom, I bought a random ugly carpet doormat for like, $1 on clearance at a hardware store and cut it down to line the bottom so Noelle wouldn’t slip and slide. I tried using an old towel, but she confused it for a second litter box, so that didn’t work out too well.

[skibunny8503]

Maybe I’ll line the cage with more carpet.  My little brother comes by our house all the time and I know that he can’t be around cat liter (I think it’s with something to do with the medication he’s on), so I don’t know if I could buy Yesterday’s News.   

Should I get a corner litter box or something better?  On the website it says that Archie’s a loped earred dwarf.  I saw one liter box for the corner that actually has like a screen so all the droppings go down but their feet never get dirt.  I’m not sure how well it works though or if it would confuse a rabbit.  Seems like a good idea but maybe I’ll just buy something else.

I should get to bed so I’m wide awake in the morning to go shopping!  Night

[Beka27]

you only need hay and litter in the litterbox/hayrack. if you put litteror hay on the floor that might confuse him as to where he is supposed to potty. yes, like i said cell-sorb is what i use. it is safe. eco litter… i’m not sure what that is…

[Beka27]

just get a regular rectangle cat litterbox… that way you have space for the hay too…

[BunnyMuffin]

Yesterday’s News is not like a normal cat litter. If your brother can be around newspapers, then he can be around this type of litter. It’s literally pelleted newspaper. But that’s very nice of you to be concerned for your brother’s well being. 🙂

And I ditto the rectangular litter box. I bought one of those corner ones with a grate on top, and it was just too small and awkward for Noelle to use and she’s a Holland Lop, so relatively small. Once he starts using the litter box you buy consistently, you could look into building a grate to put over top of it, if you want to. I did this for mine because Noelle insisted on digging out all of the litter. But I would definitely start without to make it a little more obvious for Archie that that’s the bathroom.

Happy shopping!

[skibunny8503]

Thanks you guys for all your advice!  I’ll see if I can find yesterday’s news.  Oh, one more quick question, should I get a small travel cage or do you think the humane society would supply you with one?  And if I do get a small travel cage; soft or hard?  Thanks

[RachelF]

You should get a small travel cage, I doubt the HS will give you a good one. It is much more safe to have your bun in one incase of a car accident.

Goodluck with the new baby!

[Beka27]

definitely a hard travel cage, perferably one that opens on top as well as the side. i have a “marchioro clipper” i bought at my local petland that is great. soft cages can get chewed, soiled… it’s not a pretty site.

[skibunny8503]

Hard cage it is!  I keep looking at the cage and actually measured the cage and pen (it looks smaller in the picture) and I think both together is way to big for our office (for the time beinging).  Is a 43″ in diamater by 26″ tall pen big enough? 

[Beka27]

26 inch is not tall enough. i would not go below a 36 inch high pen. a bun could easily jump over hte shorter one…

[skibunny8503]

Thanks!  I’ll look in the dog section for a pen then. 

[Beka27]

petstores have the xpens that have doors that open up fully so you can walk-through to get in to clean, feed, etc…

[skibunny8503]

I’m back from the store!  Have to take a bowl back because it’s suppose to go on the cage but the cage I got it won’t fit on it.

Yeah, so I looked in the dog section of 2 stores but couldn’t find anything really. They had one that was plastic but it looked so big.  So I ended up getting a pretty big cage.  Maybe when I’m up by Petland one day, I’ll look and see if they have any.  I got everything except the Pedi Paw, which I couldn’t find   Also went and bought some linolium and will use the extra carpet around the cage in case any food goes out.  Even though he won’t have a pen (for now), I’m home all the time so you can bet he’ll have plenty of running time around the house! 

Oh and I found Yesterday’s News…it was actually in the rabbit section, first time I’ve ever saw it at Pet Supplies Plus!

[BunnyMuffin]

Cool – nice work! If you have a Bed Bath and Beyond near you, they always seem too have PediPaws in stock. We just bought a dremel tool so that we can also use it for other projects around the house, but I haven’t been taught how to use it yet. 🙂 It was more expensive than the PediPaws thing, but multipurpose.

Now all you need is a rabbit…

[Kokaneeandkahlua]

Totally-your bunny is all prepared to come home and get spoiled!! Your doing a great job already

[Beka27]

so what’s the status on Archie, have you heard back from the rescue yet?

[skibunny8503]

Posted By Beka27 on 12/15/2008 7:22 PM
so what’s the status on Archie, have you heard back from the rescue yet?

Hmm…I dunno…..

 

He’s adorable!!  We fell in love with him as soon as they  put him in the room with us!  My husband has never had a rabbit before (he wanted a dog at first) and he loves Archie!  I told him it’s like having a small silent dog   He’s not too big but he is bigger than my other bun. 

I am concerned about his sneezing though, he only did it a few times at the humane place but just now he sneezed like 7 times in a row!  They gave me a coupon good for a free visit to a vet; so I’m going to call a few places to see if it’s good around here (most of them were around Cleveland but they said to try and call around our area to see if it’s accepted).  I might have to do that if he keeps sneezing.  But maybe a nice bath will help him, he seems like he might need one.

[BunnyBuns7]

What a cute little guys. I love Holland Lops! I would definitely bring him to the vet. Would probably be a good idea anyway just to double check his health status.

[Beka27]

i responded in your other thread about the sneezing. you want to watch for any discharge from the nose or eyes. bunnies can sneeze due to irritants (just like people), but it is a good idea to take him in for an initial visit anyways… this way your vet can get to know him. they’ll also check the poop for parasites when you’re there, check his teeth, ears, eyes. listen to his belly. that’s great that they gave you a coupon for a free visit, but i’d make sure it’s good somewhere where you’ll be going for the duration.

the HRS site lists rabbit savvy vets all around the country… http://www.rabbit.org/vets/vets.html

here is the Ohio chapter page… http://www.ohare.org/vets.htm if you don’t see any in your area (within 30-60 minutes i’d say), you can scroll to the bottom and email them and see if there are any closer that they might be able to suggest… i’m sure they’d be more than happy to help you find someone good!

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