Safe Litter

[Sharmila]

Hi. I am from India and I have four bunnies. Two 1 year olds and two 12 days olds (New Zealand whites). The one problem I am having is with the litter thing.

Mom gets upset when there’s odour all over the place. I didn’t know about the litter thing until few days back. But as soon as I was elated that things like litter exists, my happiness was broken down by the fact that most litters for rabbits are poisonous.

The biggest problem here is in India, small animals are not common pets. So, local stores do not have much supplies for Rabbits. We do not get Timothy or Oat hay like stuff here. We have Indian Hay. I have no idea whether my bunnies will like it at all. I searched for litter online and the only ones I got said “Natural Wood Shavings – Wood Chips for small animals” and “Natural Saw Dust for small animals – lint free” and cat litters which have betonite clay. Now, none of them seem to be safe according to online forums although they promise to be dust free almost.

So, what is the solution I can use to control the litter problems?

[Azerane]

Hi there, a litter tray and litter is the best thing for keeping the smell down. Natural wood shavings can be used, depending on what they are. If they are aspen they are completely fine, if they are pine then it needs to also say that they are kiln dried. If they are cedar you should not use them at all. Don’t use the “saw dust” one either.

Hopefully there’s also a larger range of cat litter somewhere, you should be able to find paper based pellet litter, and maybe even wood pellet litter (I use the wood pellet litter and many people use paper pellet litter). As you have mentioned clay and clumping litters aren’t safe for rabbits.

If you can’t get any of those types of litters, you can always use a bit of shredded paper with some hay on top. It won’t be the best for odour and you’ll need to be changing it completely every single day, but it will help not to have poop and pee all over the place.

We did have another member called roy join recently from India, but I’m not sure whether he looked into litter or what he was using, but I do know that he had a lot of trouble finding hay and had to go to horse stables to get hay for his rabbit. Horse quality hay is fine for rabbits

[Sharmila]

Hay is very difficult to get. And what is available is more like straw.

Are birch shavings okay?

[jerseygirl]

Birch shavings would be fine and safe if your rabbits nibble at some of it. : )

[Sharmila]

Alrighty. Thank you. ?

[Author]

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