Kaytee Smellin Good Fragrance Spray

[Tor]

Hi all,
New to rabbit owning and I have a lot of questions.  My boss gifted me a rabbit because we went to a shelter with her when she adopted a cat and we fell in love with a bunny.  She bought a cage kit that came with a ton of stuff in it.  I have been researching each thing it came with, like the yogurt drops which I have found may lead to tooth decay so I am on the fence about giving her those and have stopped.  But after searching this forum (which has been a HUGE help!) I came up empty for this spray.  Any thoughts on it?

Thanks!

~Tor.

[tobyluv]

Hi and welcome to Binky Bunny. I don’t think that spray should be used. Rabbits do not like any fragrances in their areas or around their food. That could make them not want to eat and just generally be an unpleasant (artificial) smell. You should have very little odor if you keep the cage/litter box clean. Daily cleaning of the soiled areas is best. Is the rabbit spayed? Their pee and poop can be stronger smelling if they aren’t spayed or neutered.

You are right not to give yogurt drops to a bunny. Rabbits should not have dairy products and they are probably also full of sugar, which is bad. If the shelter is giving the yogurt drops and scented spray to go with rabbits, you may want to contact them and let them know these aren’t good for rabbits. I don’t know what size cage you got, but almost all cages sold for rabbits are not large enough. They need to have enough room to go 4 hops in at least one direction. Even with a larger cage, they need adequate out of cage time daily for exercise. You will have to bunny proof any area they are in. Dog crates, x-pens or diy wire cube panel pens give rabbits more room.

Go to the BUNNY INFO link at the top of the page to find information on all the basics of bunny care – feeding, housing, rabbit proofing, etc. You really have to be careful with their diet since they have a complex digestive system. Make sure the rabbit is getting and eating plenty of hay.

[Q8bunny]

No yogurt drops and no spray, please.
There are a lot of products out there marketed for bunnies, which are actually terrible for their well being: junk treats, muesly style food, fragrance sprays, shampoos (buns clean themselves; poorly buns can be cleaned with a terry and some warm water).
It’s great that you’re educating yourself. Your buns will thank you for it.

[Sunny]

i completely agree with tobyluv. i’ll mention, though, that Kaytee typically doesn’t appear to be the best brand for pet anything. some items you can immediately tell are possibly harmful or dangerous, and others are a bit harder to see that way. every Kaytee item i’ve ever seen has a downside. sometimes you find it in product reviews, but if it’s a treat, pellet, etc. you can usually tell just by looking at the ingredients. i try my best to avoid Kaytee whenever possible.
just to give you a few examples…

https://www.amazon.com/Kaytee-Supreme-Rabbit-Food-10-lb/dp/B0002AQN4U/ref=sr_1_12?ie=UTF8&qid=1503766368&sr=8-12&keywords=kaytee+rabbit
the first ingredient is alfalfa meal. alfalfa is supposed to be unhealthy to adult rabbits in large amounts. then you look at Oxbow, a very respected brand when it comes to rabbit products, and the first ingredient in their adult rabbit pellets is timothy grass meal. seems much healthier to me.

https://www.amazon.com/Kaytee-Forti-Diet-Health-Rabbit-8-Ounce/dp/B0054S4WEI/ref=sr_1_17?ie=UTF8&qid=1503766368&sr=8-17&keywords=kaytee+rabbit
this one honestly confuses me. it’s packed with all kinds of seeds and stuck together with honey. i don’t see how this could be healthy at all, and yet i don’t recall seeing any reviews saying the same.

when it comes to other products – as in ones meant for other animals besides rabbits – they’re still far from good. mesh wheels, exercise balls, more unhealthy commercial treats…it doesn’t end! i don’t understand how a company could be okay with producing and advertising these products. some of their other items i’ll admit i’m not sure about, like paper based beddings and hay, but i’d still be hesitant to support them even if they happened to be perfectly safe.

edit: i agree with Q8 too. same sorta thing that i said, but not about a certain brand.

[sarahthegemini]

A rabbit shouldn’t smell so I don’t know why a spray like this will ever be necessary. If your bun smells, you need to establish the cause and deal with it. Also, definitely avoid yoghurt drops. Veggies and fruit (when bun is old enough) are great healthy treats. There’s no need for pet shop junk

[LBJ10]

I would definitely avoid the yogurt drops. I know some people give them once in a blue moon, but they really aren’t good for bunnies. They are very sugary and there are much more healthy options available. Unfortunately, there are no real regulations regarding this sort of thing. So just because something is marketed for rabbits doesn’t mean it’s good for them.

As for the fragrance spray… even if it isn’t toxic, I don’t think a rabbit would appreciate it very much. Rabbits, themselves, typically do not smell. And artificial fragrances are going to overwhelm them. Maybe you could use it as an air freshener elsewhere in the house?

[joea64]

I personally think Kaytee’s main market is people who really don’t know that much about rabbits, what they actually need to eat or how they behave. I have a hard time thinking of any Kaytee food product I’ve seen advertised as being for rabbits that didn’t have some kind of junk in it that bunnies shouldn’t have except possibly in very small quantities as treats, and most of those things are mixed in as basic parts of their “fortified” daily foods. Their treat packages are even worse, to my way of thinking.

I go strictly with Oxbow for prepared rabbit food. Their Daily Essentials Adult Rabbit pellets, which are strictly plain (no additional junk mixed in), are based on ground timothy hay with a fiber content ranging from 25% – 29%. They shouldn’t replace, nor are they intended (as Oxbow says straight-up on the package) to replace fresh hay, but I give my two buns a total of 1/4 cup (1/8 cup per rabbit) in the morning for their breakfast, according to the package directions. Oxbow Simple Rewards treats are also very good, IMO, being either baked-cookie type treats using the same ground timothy meal as their pellets or dried fruit pieces. My buns go bananas over their apple/banana treats though right now that particular variety is almost impossible to find in my area (I think I will have to order some from Friends of Rabbits). Oxbow is far, far better than Kaytee because they design their products based on what’s actually good for rabbits.

If you’re worried about urine smell, you might try mixing a very small amount of unpausterized apple cider vinegar in with their water, I believe at least one other BB member has used this method successfully and posted about it here. I think it’s strictly optional, though; the only problem with unpleasant eliminatory smells I’ve had so far in life with rabbits this week were when I found out that Panda and/or Fernando were using a different corner of their condo for toileting than I had put their litterbox in. I cleaned that corner and shifted the litterbox over there and haven’t had any trouble since.

P.S. Even with hay, you need to be careful to make sure that it’s fresh. Check the expiration date on the package, look at the hay to see that it’s green, and sniff the package – you should be smelling a nice, fresh, grassy scent. I actually plan to get my hay direct from Friends of Rabbits since they have deals with area farmers and can get whole bales of mixed hays for much cheaper than any store prices.

[Tor]

Thank you all! Sassafras, that’s what we named her, doesn’t smell at all so I was quite confused by it. My dogs on the other hand do! Maybe I can use the spray for them haha! She is two or three months at their guess. The person who surrendered her, their child won her at a fair and they didn’t want her so they surrendered her. I think she is a mini-rex, or possibly a rex, she fits the descriptions of the mini-rex but I am not sure the difference other than size between the breeds. I was totally unprepared for this gift as I usually research thoroughly before getting any pet.

We do let her out to exercise with us. We are in the process of bunny proofing as much as we can but we block off a huge area. We have cats who love her. They come over and groom her and she plays with them. We had had a guinea pig before so I knew the cats would be fine with her, but I was so happy that she was loving them back and not afraid at all.

The cage is 4 feet long.

I researched food and hay, so I am good there. We had a diabetic cat that our vet said could have been a result of the dry food so I am all about watching what they eat and giving them the best food possible. We don’t have kids so our brood are treated very much like out kids. My sisters think I am nuts but we love our furbabies very much and we want them to thrive so we do whatever it takes to keep them healthy and happy.

[sarahthegemini]

Posted By Tor on 8/26/2017 2:42 PM

Thank you all! Sassafras, that’s what we named her, doesn’t smell at all so I was quite confused by it. My dogs on the other hand do! Maybe I can use the spray for them haha! She is two or three months at their guess. The person who surrendered her, their child won her at a fair and they didn’t want her so they surrendered her. I think she is a mini-rex, or possibly a rex, she fits the descriptions of the mini-rex but I am not sure the difference other than size between the breeds. I was totally unprepared for this gift as I usually research thoroughly before getting any pet.

We do let her out to exercise with us. We are in the process of bunny proofing as much as we can but we block off a huge area. We have cats who love her. They come over and groom her and she plays with them. We had had a guinea pig before so I knew the cats would be fine with her, but I was so happy that she was loving them back and not afraid at all.

The cage is 4 feet long.

I researched food and hay, so I am good there. We had a diabetic cat that our vet said could have been a result of the dry food so I am all about watching what they eat and giving them the best food possible. We don’t have kids so our brood are treated very much like out kids. My sisters think I am nuts but we love our furbabies very much and we want them to thrive so we do whatever it takes to keep them healthy and happy.

Sounds like she is in great hands and what a lovely name!

[Author]

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