Smell Coverup?!?!

[secuono]

Is there a product that works very well to get rid of or cover the dreadfull rabbit smell???

They still suck at potty training, so until they get it right, I need help with the pig farm smell……!

[hooty22]

Are they neutered? The smell is really lessened by that. As far as getting rid of the smell, cleaning. If its on carpets you can try vinegar or other pet odor removing soaps and sprays. Felony doesn’t smell, but I keep a Febreze electric plug in plugged in near his litter area.

[Royce&Abby]

My rabbits have the same problem. They are litter trained for a while they just kept peeing outside the litterbox and it would soak into the carpet. What I did was I went to Staples and bought one of the plastic mats that you put under office chairs and then I put down a couple fleece blankets and an old sheet on top (for comfort and so they aren’t sliding around). Now, every once and a while when someone has an accident, I just pull off the sheets and toss them in the laundry.

[secuono]

I only have girls.
I clean them every day to every other day, it’s insane…

[hooty22]

What type of litter are you using? It might be a combination of bad litter smell absorbtion and outside litter accidents. What is it that they are peeing on/where is the smell the strongest?

[Beka27]

Like Felony said, some more info would be helpful so we can offer advice that is applicable to your situation.

[secuono]

just newspaper and hay. It’s just the pee. poo really doesn’t have a smell, unless the pee on the poo…
Daisy pees in 2 corners on wood floors, and that’s a huge issue. i cant put a litterbox there because she will just push it out of her way and if i tape it down, she will chew it free! lol. Random stuff–I gave her a box of hay and another of green starch packing peanuts and shes digging her way to china now. she also jumped over a cart and hid in the back of my pantry….theres no food she would like in there, but she refused to come out..lol

[hooty22]

Ha, yeah, I’ve had Felony disappear into the pantry before. They love dark confined spaces.

I would try something different for litter. I’m currently having great success with wood stove pellets, and I’ve literally tried every type of litter out there. On the the plus side, it’s insanely cheap, like $4 for a 40 pound bag. It’s very absorbative, and I haven’t had issues with smell, it seems it kind of traps the smell in as well as the pee because it only smells after I dump it and gets all tossed around.

As for the peeing in the corner… Have you tried spraying it with a strong perfume? It might discourage her from even going into those corners at all…

The best advice I guess I have is to be very strict and diligent with your litter box training. Keep her confined into a smaller space until she ‘gets it’.

[Kokaneeandkahlua]

I only have girls.
I clean them every day to every other day, it’s insane…

Even though they are girls-they still need to be fixed to reduce smell Also they won’t really ‘get it’ in terms of litter training when they aren’t fixed. Females are the territorial sex, and they want to mark their territory when they aren’t fixed. Spaying greatly reduces, if not elminates, this.

just newspaper and hay.

Newspaper is not very absorbant-yes cheap But if you use it you have to clean every day-it’d be best for the smell to switch to something like carefresh or yesterdays news. That plus spaying should greatly reduce the smell. I have four and people can come over and not know I have rabbits

[RabbitPam]

Yep, the litters specifically made for bunnies are designed to combat their odor. I have very good luck with Aspen pellets as well, and many people like Feline Pine pellets, which can be found in a grocery store and are cheap. (They’re the cat version of wood stove pellets that Hooty mentioned.) Carefresh and Yesterday’s News are the paper kind if they prefer softer stuff. It’s the fact that the newspaper won’t combat odor at all that is making it worse, and pre-spayed girls are smelly enough as is.

Nature’s Miracle is a great cleanser and odor eliminator that’s designed especially for pet problems. I’ve seen it in all the pet stores, and online of course. Good for washing if the vinegar doesn’t work for you.

[Balefulregards]

Some of what you smell is from their hormones – Spaying will help with that musky odor. And have you looked at their anal glands? They made need general cleaning if they are blocked and extra skunky.

For Litter, I use a base of shredded Aspen – I don’t know why, but it seems to neutralize the odor differently..Then I use Yesterdays News and some carefresh ( shredded cardboard fluff)

I am sensitive to their smell, as they mainly live (free roam) in my bedroom – so believe me, if they were smelly we would have issues. I do also use the pet enzyme stuff to wipe down the litter boxes – in between their weekly vinegar soak. So, I change their litter three times a week – wipe down the boxes in between and on Saturday everything gets a vinegar and hot water wash.

There is no real “magic bullet” for the litter. You have to keep on top of it.

As to litter training, the advice you have gotten so far is excellent. Spaying will help TONS. But there is a role that you as human have to play and it is Consistency and boundries. When Coco has fallen off her litter habits, I had to re-cage her at night ( since that was when she was peeing everywhere) until she remembered how to use her littler box. I had to sweep up every poo and make sure they all made it back into the boxes. I had to make sure there were no pee spots I had missed on the carpets – which would lead to MORE peeing. There were a couple of weeks where I was washing things EVERY DAY and felt like it was seriously never ending.

Again, as it was in my bedroom, the first thing I would wake up and see is rabbit poo and pee wars through my bedroom. Talk about a $*&!ty awakening.

You – The Human – have to be pro-active and firm about what your expectations are – and thankfully you found a great community to support you along the way. I honestly don’t know what I would have done between bonding Jackson and Coco and the ensuing feces/urine battles without BinkyBunny. You CAN do it – it just means a lot of up-front invested time and energy – but it pays off tons.

[jerseygirl]

I’ve found newspaper to be really poor at odour control yet paper litters pretty good. It’s strange. I think most newspapers use soy based inks so perhaps that gets smelly too.
Someone recently mentioned they used wall paper backing paper which was more effective that newspaper.
 

Vinegar & water is good for cleaning cage, boxes, pee spots. It neutralises rather than covers up.

I clean them every day to every other day, it’s insane…

You are meaning the litter boxes?

[secuono]

all their bottoms are very clean, I never have to do anything with them. The only grooming I do on them is on Fudge. I trim the fur at an angel around her eyes so she can actually see. If I don’t, she becomes extremely shy and wont move much.

[secuono]

for now, i just need a spray for the floor and air.

[Monkeybun]

I bought some of the Nature’s Miracle from BB here, and my god… I’m in love! Monkey had taken to marking the floor aroudn her pen.. and yeesh it got bad. Bought this stuff… smell gone! AND she hasn’t remarked those spots!! YAY! Now I just need to do the entire apartment with it so she never marks again… lol.

[BinkyBunny]

I also am a big fan of Nature’s Miracle.  I use that in conjuction with a 50/50 water/white vinegar 

As far as scented sprays – there are some sprays and scented things that you need to be careful of.   But I was able  to find some info about a safer way to go from a rabbit-savvy expert Dana Krempels (who also answers questions on allexperts.com)

Here is a copy of the question and answers about this that you may find helpful: 

SOURCE:http://en.allexperts.com/q/Rabbits-…rays-1.htm

Rabbits – candles and scented sprays

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Expert: Dana Krempels, Ph.D. – 10/18/2008

Question
QUESTION: Are candles (scented and not) and scented household sprays harmful to rabbits?
Does it make a difference to use soy and/or beeswax candles?
If those are not good, are there any safe ways to add scent without any health hazards?

ANSWER:

This is an excellent question, and I’m glad you are concerned enough about your bunny’s respiratory (and other) health to ask!

I would definitely *not* use scented sprays.  Aerosols can be harmful to the respiratory tract of small animals, and I just would not take the chance.

Scented candles might be all right, but it is *very* important to use very high quality candles that don’t contain cheap, synthetic fragrances that can be so strong as to cause headaches.  I do know of a bunny whose caregiver constantly had half a dozen of those cheap, supermarket brand candles going–berry scents, flower scents, etc. and the poor bunny just languished until I told her to stop.  And then the bunny got better!

Aromatherapy candles are usually going to be the safest bet.  Be sure the wicks are safe, and do not contain heavy metals (candles made in China or other overseas places with little regulation often have dangerous, lead-containing wicks!)  An excellent company whose candles have proven safe for us are the candles made by Aroma Naturals:

http://www.aromanaturals.com/

Their scents are fantastic, and you can get soy or regular candles (I don’t think that soy or beeswax are necessarily safer than regular paraffin.

You can usually buy this brand at a good health food supermarket sucha s Wild Oats/Whole Foods, where you can sniff them in person and find the ones you like best (my personal favorites are “serenity” and “tranquility”–but they’re all good).

Other aromatherapy brands you can get at Wild Oats are probably also good.

Hope that helps!

Dana

———- FOLLOW-UP ———-

QUESTION: 

The other thing is, I sometimes use non-aerosol sprays like “Air-Therapy” (they are organic type from health food stores and trader joes) but now that the aerosol danger is eliminated, what about the amount of particles that will float down onto the floor? I know this may have to do with how much someone sprays, but in general, could this be harmful? I am assuming lime and orange, because of the acidic nature, could cause irritation IF the amount of the particles that landed were many.   I know this may be something you may not know, but I thought I would at least ask.

Thanks again!!! 

 

Answer

I don’t know the ingredients in the sprays you describe, so can’t really say whether they would be harmful.  Herbal oils are not necessarily non-toxic, and plants produce them to deter herbivores.  So sometimes they are actually toxic “on purpose” if you ask the plant!

Certain citrus oils are harmful to rabbits (e.g., limonene), as are other aromatics such as those found in eucalyptus and other plants.  The  miniscule amounts a bunny might encounter after a spray has been applied might not be overtly toxic, but I’m  not sure I’d add that to the environment when safe aromatherapy candles will provide plenty of pleasant fragrance.

Too much aromatic vapor of any kind can cause headaches and respiratory irritation.

I hope that helps.

Dana

 

 Article END

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I actually checked out the those candles she was talking about.  They really are amazing – though rather pricey.   But they now are sold in the BB  online store.

 

[secuono]

Well, I scrubbed my floors and floor molding with Lysol, never thought I would love that chemical smell! It’s an open area to the kitchen, laundry room and other parts of the house, so the smell soon left, but the nasty rabbit smell was gone!!! WHOO HOO! I redid Daisy’s cage, so I won’t have to have her free range all the time. Wish I had a spare room to keep them in instead…

[secuono]

Today is regular cleaning day. Hopefully the smell will continue to stay away.

[Beka27]

I don’t like strong cleaning chemical smells either, but I think it’s better than stinky bunny. ;o) If you keep up with it, you should be able to keep the “stinkiness” at bay.

[Kokaneeandkahlua]

I found a wonderful chemical to use-it’s antibacterial, antifungal, antivirus-basically anti everything with lemon and I mop with that-it’s specifically made (well according to the company) for pets. Keeps things very sanitary and hygeinic -and smells nice

[secuono]

Posted By Kokaneeandkahlua on 12/28/2009 02:03 AM
I found a wonderful chemical to use-it’s antibacterial, antifungal, antivirus-basically anti everything with lemon and I mop with that-it’s specifically made (well according to the company) for pets. Keeps things very sanitary and hygeinic -and smells nice

 

…..Well….What’s it called?

[BinkyBunny]

Just an FYI for anyone reading this and wants to use Lysol: For the floor cleaner – The company recommends rinsing thoroughly with water anywhere animals will be on. Also for the sprays, they recommend taking animals out, and then bringing them back once it has aired out. They also recommend rinsing with water ANY of their products that touches a surface where animals will be on.  If you have any questions though about a particular product they are very good about answering questions regarding animal safety in regards to their specific products.

KK – I’d like to know the name of that product too  -  sounds great!   I know there is also a good product called Vanodine – but it definitely has more of a iodine smell, but it is good for sanitizing.  http://www.vanodine.com/

[Monkeybun]

For typical cleaning, I use something called Simple Green. its non toxic, enviromentally safe, and smells wonderful. They make it in a couple different scents now too, all of them completely safe. My mom uses the stuff in her cleaning business, she swears by it. Whats great about it is that if you spill it on plants, or like my step dad have a habit of tossing out the dirty water onto the lawn, it doesn’t cause any damage! The plants are unharmed. And, as we discovered, if a cat decides to try and drink it, all that happens is that they have nice clean mouths! lol. Silly kitties… So its cat safe!

[Monkeybun]

I’d like to add as well.. Simple Green now also sells Pet Stain and Odor removers that are safe for use on most pet supplies, like beds and fabrics and toys and carriers… etc.

[BinkyBunny]

I completly forgot about Simple Green – That is also a great alternative.

ETA-They also recommend airing, rinsing and fully drying.   Of course this is what we would do with a vinegar mix too.  So I’m figuriung that would be obvious to everyone regarding most cleaning products, but just in case here’s a link to using around pets.

http://simplegreen.com/solutions_cl…amp;artlang=en

Monkey – I’ll have to check out their new products geared for pet stains/odors.  Thanks!

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