Shredded Paper as Litter

[Cat Ladies Society]

Hi,

The cat shelter I help run just got our first bunny resident. I’ve had rabbits in the past, but it’s been many years. This is a neutered 2 1/2-yr-old male house rabbit. He’s partially litter trained. The person who brought him in also brought a partial bag of CareFresh litter, which is what we have in the litterbox right now.

In the cat litterboxes, we sometimes also use finely shredded paper (fine crosscut, not strips). Since CareFresh is kind of expensive, would shredded paper be okay to use? It’s usually shredded from a combination of regular white office paper and newspaper. I know regular cat litter is definitely out.

[jerseygirl]

Shredded paper/newpaper will be fine. Keeping the rest of his enclosure floor bare, and popping some hay in e his litterbox should help him use it more also.  Or you can suspended a hay rack directly over the box.  Some bunnies can be fussy about change, as aree cats I imagine!  You could start using the shredded material with a little of the carefresh on top to transistion him. Hopefully he’ll be a gem and you’ll have no worries.  Hope he finds a new home soon!

[Beka27]

That’s fine, but it’s not super absorbent. Could you look into woodstove pellets or horse stall bedding? It’s super cheap and very good at odor control and absorbency.

[Cat Ladies Society]

Absorbancy isn’t a huge issue here since all of our boxes, even the cats ones, are completely dumped, cleaned and refilled every day. I tried the paper today as an experiment, and he seemed to get a kick out of it.

[Deleted User]

Cat Ladies Society, I love your usename!
I have used shredded newsprint in a pinch and if changed often it works fine. You could see if a local newspaper would donate roll-ends to your society. The roll ends are the same paper as newspaper but without ink on them.

[RabbitPam]

The paper is fine, but I’m with Beka though I would suggest a product called Feline Pine. It is pretty affordable, can be used for cats and bunnies, and is wood pellets without any harmful fumes. That way you can use it for both, plus it’s very absorbant and controls odor really well. comes in Huge bags at pet stores, and cheap small bags in grocery stores.

Or, you could just adopt out the bunny this weekend and the new owner could continue to use Care Fresh. Good luck! (Don’t get too attached – bunnies are very, very cute and personable. )

[Cat Ladies Society]

I’m hoping he gets adopted quickly. He’s a cute little guy and fun to watch. I have him running free in the front room of the shelter right now, which is our lowest cat population room for older cats and special needs cats (our cats roam freely). He’s having a great time, and the cats don’t even seem to notice him. We already have two people potentially interested.

[Beka27]

I hope he gets adopted soon! That’s so great of you to take him in!

Make sure to keep our site bookmarked too, just in case you need more help in the future. ;o)

[Author]

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