Litter box smells

[klrshea]

Hi!  My name is Krista and I am new to this site.  I have two male bunnies that have the run of the whole house for the most part.  At night they are confined to the laundry room where their cages are always open to them.  The problem is that they are consistenly inconsistent about using their litter boxes.  I have resigned myself to the fact that we just have to clean up after them everyday.  We vacumn the floor and empty their litterboxes daily, but the ammonia smell is overwhelming when we open the door in the morning.  Any ideas on how to reduce the smell?

[Kokaneeandkahlua]

Welcome to Binkybunny!! What a great setup you have! I love free range bunnies

First question: are your bunnies neutered?

[Beka27]

i looked on your profile and it said one neutered, one not. unaltered buns tend to smell a lot more than altered buns. is it only one bun that is making the messes by chance? or do you see them both not using the box? i am concerned that the ammonia smell is so overpowering, b/c that means they are breathing it in all night. is there any kind of air circulation or ventilation in the laundry room? is there a reason the second bun is not altered (too young, health complications?)

[Sarita]

What kind of litter are you using too? Maybe something with better odor control will help.

[Scarlet_Rose]

I agree with the altering of the rabbit and it will help the smell. I second the litter. However if the smell is caused by the inconsistentcy of not going potty in the litter box and rather going around, I think the best option is to work more on potty training. Confine them to the cage at night and check out the litter box training under BUNNY INFO, let them out when you can supervise them and catch them in the act and scoot them over to the litter box and work on improving the habits and reinforce that desireable behavior.

[SpazJumps]

I have 2 altered girls, but their boxes still used to get pretty smelly. Some things that I’ve found to help: I change their boxes every 2-3 days (which doesn’t help you out since you do daily changing!), I add more wood stove pellets to the box they tend to favor since it absorbs smells, and I’ve switched their breakfast to a pellet that contains yucca extract. We also got a new air filter, and since we started using it, I haven’t noticed the apartment smelling much anymore – could be the “negative ion technology” or that it’s just a lot bigger than my previous one. They have really good litterbox habits. One of them used to slip up every now and then, but “seeding” the box with a bit of old litter seems to have helped her out a lot.

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