RHD and Bleach

[BrokenBlue]

Hi everyone,

(Sorry for such a long post btw, hope it’s not too confusing)

My bunny passed away in October and the vets and I suspect it was from RHD. He lived in a shed connected to a large outdoor avairy type space with wooden decking. Tomorrow I am bringing home some pet mice who will live in that shed so I need to clean it. I have one other bunny who is vaccinated against RHD and did not live with the other bunny but I want to connect her outdoor area to his so she has more space in summer.

Until last week I had not entered the shed since my boy passed away, partly because I was scared of picking up RHD on my shoes and passing it onto my healthy bunny. She is vaccinated but I am terrified of anything happening to her or accidentally passing RHD onto a wild population of rabbits.

Anyway, over the last week I have been scrubbing his old shed and run area with pet safe disinfectant and sometimes lemon juice. After researching which disinfectants are effective against RHD I bought some bleach this morning and wiped the whole shed down with a 10% solution. I rinsed it with a little water but it still smells of bleach.

Now my problem is how to neutralise and dispose of the bleach. I have a bucket of a very weak bleach solution that I was dipping my cleaning brush into. I can’t just pour it straight down the sink since we have a septic tank system so any advice on what to do with that would be greatly appreciated.

Also, before getting my rabbit we built some wooden shelves and ramps onto the walls of the shed that he enjoyed sitting on. These are quite porous. In future I want to allow my mice to free range in the shed sometimes but I am scared that they might chew some of the wood that the bleach has leached  into. Is there anyway of neutralising this so that the bleach residue is no longer harmful?

Finally, I am currently changing my shoes every time I step into his avairy/run area. I have one pair of “RHD shoes” and one pair of “clean shoes”. When cleaning the shed i wear old clothes that I plan to burn once this is all over and always shower before seeing my bunny. You have to walk through the run area to access the shed. I have not used bleach on this area yet partly because I still have to work out how to dispose of it and partly because I am scared it will harm my current rabbit when she finally goes in. Does anyone have any ideas on how to clean this area or at least a simpler way of entering the shed without picking up RHD? At the moment I’m thinking of making a temporary cardboard walkway.

So to summarise, my questions are:

1. How to dispose of bleach when you have a septic tank system

2. How to neutralise wooden items that have been cleaned with bleach so they are safe for animals to walk and chew on in future

3. Any tips for moving between “RHD areas” and “healthy rabbit areas”?

4. Any tips for protecting my current bunny?

 

Thank you so much for any responses. As you can imagine this is a pretty stressful time for me and I would really appreciate any help. 🙂

[Bam]

First of all, the best thing for sterilizing bunny quarters is Virkon S. It’s non toxic to rabbits, it doesn’t stain and you dont wipe it off – you spray it on previously cleaned surfaces and let it dry.  (Any disinfectant should be applied to cleaned surfaces, because they won’t penetrate actual dirt). It is used in stables, particularly horse stables.

Chlorine bleach is highly unstable and will degrade in a matter of hours when exposed to sunlight. If mixed with water, the solution should be used within a day or it loses most of its germ-killing potency. It degrades to 95-98 % into salt water (NaCl, normal table salt), although there is still enough potency in it to potentially harm waterliving organisms such as frogs. I’d say a week after cleaning the area with chlorine bleach would be ample time for it to have been rendered harmless. I don’t know much about septic tanks, but a quick search gave me that a moderate amount of chlorine bleach in water won’t harm a septic tank. You could perhaps let the bucket with used bleach and water sit for a day or so before you pour it down the drain?

Plastic shoe covers that you safely dispose of after use could be used when you go from one area to another, or a Virkon S shoe bath that you walk through when passing between areas. The latter would obviously leave less plastic waste.

The best thing you can do to protect your bun is to keep her vaccinations up to date. RVHD is spread by insects such as flies, mosquitos and ticks, so if she is living outdoors, there’s a high likelihood that she will be exposed to the viruses during insect season, if there is a virus outbreak in your area. I am in the same situation here. Vaccinating my buns has spared them, even though they get outdoors time and we’ve had several local outbreaks here these last few years.

[BrokenBlue]

Thanks Bam. I will try to get some Virkon S and set up a shoe dip. Thanks for the info on bleach, I’ve read a lot of conflicting stuff about it degrading (or not!) and how sensitive septic tanks are to it. I don’t think we have any wild rabbits near us. I haven’t seen any around here in years so I suspect the RHD came in on footwear.

[Bam]

RHD can travel fairly long distances with birds – either with ticks (birds can have many ticks) or in the bird’s gut after the bird has eaten an infected rabbit or hare.  Then the bird poops, flies feast on the poop and the flies travel with the winds. Where I am, RVHD2 has been discovered on rather remote islands with no human inhabitants. It is however possible to track the virus in on shoes.

 

[Author]

Messages