Rabbit items for x-pens

[Arson]

I have two rabbits. One male, One female. Each live in a seperate 24″W x 30″H Eight Panel x-pen. Both pens are connected to each other but seperated by two connecting panels. They shall remain seperated until Chip is neutered and they are both fully healed.

I would like to add some improvements to their pens to make it more exciting for them to live in. The first thing I’d like to get done for sure is build a wooden hidey house (Beka27’s Hidey House to be exact) and replace their litterboxes with a larger and deeper sized one. Currently, the flooring for the xpens is a single sheet to cover the floor tiles. Both are chewers so I would not risk putting textured carpet beneath them. I thought about a single long piece of plywood with vinyl floor tiles on top of it to keep it water proof. Would that work? I also want to keep their poops from rolling out of their pens.

I am currently using Paper Pellet Litter in their litterbox but It’s starting to become pretty costly so i’m trying to come up with a safe alternitive that would be effective yet cheaper and keep away the smell. Hazel is a digger so i have a plastic grid in her litterbox. I would also like to find a better way of feeding them hay without having to put so much in their litterbox and have them soil on it.

I also would like to come up with a better solution or replacement for the store brand plastic water bottles that they both use with something better, easier for them to use, and wouldn’t leak as much. Also something easier to secure to the pen.

[jerseygirl]

When I read your thread title I immediately thought of Bekas custom hidey hut. Glad you’ve already seen that.

The plywood + vinyl tiles would work. My only thought is if urine goes throught the gaps between tile and soaks into the wood. It could become a spot for bunnies to remark with pee.

You could use a vinyl remnant to go under the entire pen. You could even fold it up some to contain random droppings and hay. Some people have uses pieces of coroplast board to create a guard around the boundaries. I’m just not certain what would be best for chewers.

I think you’d also like Bekas solution for hay bin over the litterbox. I’ll try add a picture but basically she has a container suspended off the xpen with a ziptie loop and a dog clip. It sits over the litterbox so they have to get into it to access their hay.

Cheaper, effective litter you say? WOOD STOVE PELLETS! Lots of member use and recommend them. You can buy as stove pellets that are accelerant free or pellet horse bedding. Same thing.

Edit: Here’s Beka’s hay set up.

    

I’ve often thought those metal pot plant baskets could be used too. Some of them are actually called “hay rack” style.

[Moonlight_Wolf]

I have a quick tube in my bunnies pen. They love lying in it and running through it. It is a cardboard tube that is used to mold cement or something. I also have a maze haven in their pen and they love sleeping in that and chewing it too!

For the water bottle I use the water buddy, which works differently from other water bottles so it does not leak as much.

[lwayne]

My bunnies love that packing paper stuff. It is paper bag material (you could probably just throw in some of those too!), but it is really long. I scrunch it up for them and they love pushing it around, hiding under it, and chewing it.

[jennyrabbit]

I did something similer to beka for hey..I bent a NIC grid, zip tied it to the pen, and strapped(because jenny throws her litter bixes around) the litterbox undernieth the rack. in Jennys case, she likes to sit in the hay reguradless, she climbes over the box and sits in the hay rack, so the wide spacing on the grid helps the hay remain clean as anything heavy from pee just falls through the grid into the box, as do her poops when she hops around on the rack, basicley “sifting” the hay.

for play things, I took a rubbermaid bin, turned it upside down, drilled holes in the bottom and ct a door way into the side, then I hung little willow ball’s stuffed with hay, some long, some short and also intermixed it I ripping newspaper into strips, rolling the ends andsticking them up through the holls so that she goes inside and has all kinds of things to walk through and shred.

[Beka27]

The wood hidey house my husband made is very, very awesome! We purposely made it the exact dimensions of one end of the pen so they can’t get behind it. Only drawback so far is it’s heavy to lift, but fortunately my bunnies are neat-freaks and I only need to move it when I do the full pen cleaning. I wanted something to add vertical height to the xpen, but I’ve never had much luck with building stuff out of NIC grids, so it’s worked out great.

It sounds like you’ve gotten things figured out! I also did the side-by-side xpens when bonding my pair and I liked the set-up.

[Arson]

I recently took an interest in crocheting as a way to relax and reduce some stress. Noticing the different variety of string material, i came to realize the opportunity it serves me. I bought a rather large roll of 100% cotton string to work with so i’ve been wondering whether it could be safely used for rabbit items, such as making toys or blankets and not have to be so concerned about obstruction since it’s made of cotton material?

I have Marshall Pet Peter’s Rabbit LAX in my rabbit items cupboard for any future incidents but I just want to be sure.

 

[Deleted User]

I think the cotton yarn is fine for making rabbit accessories. They may quickly destroy it though and all your crocheting will have to resume which will mean more relaxing time for you (j/k)!

I am interested in seeing your NIC bendy thing, can you take a picture?

[MissKris&Koji]

FYI on the petroleum stuff – I looked into getting some myself since I was in the middle of one hell of a shed, most things I read now seem to be recommending it for preventative and saying it’s actually not that helpful once an obstruction is formed (or could even make the problem worse in some cases). I read that if you’re going to use it, 2x a week during sheds or all the time is the way to go.

[Arson]

Well I wouldn’t mind if they were to destory it as the whole point of my doing it is for them. My pen setup is fairly simple and straight forward. Each has a seperate xpen that they live in. The male has a wooden cardboard box as his hidey house that he sleeps in. The female has a wooden box I made from standard plywood. Each has a cat sized litterbox containing oat hay and paper pellet litter. Beneath both xpens are a long bedsheet that keeps them from slipping on the tile. They each have their own water bottle and ceramic bowl for their pellets.

http://yfrog.com/jqcimg0383hj

A link to the picture of the current setup.

[Beka27]

That looks great Arson! It’s very reminiscent to what my original bonding set-up looked like. After they bonded, I was able to reconfigure the pens so they still had the same area (4×8 feet) but no divider.

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