To anyone with either rabbits/guinea pigs/both ....

[earlgrey]

How on earth do you manage those fortnightly bin collections. I was told to clean them out every day and it takes a whole flippin' bin liner to get rid of all that sawdust/hay/straw/poo.

How do you manage it? We can't put it in the green garden bags because as we live next to allotments we have problems with rats.

And how, when you're cleaning them out and get covered in sawdust, do you stop your living room looking like a hutch?

[WestCountryLass]

I only clean my rabbit out every two weeks but he lives out doors and poos on a patch up the top of the garden so his hutch is clean. I do put sawdust in his hutch but if you are cleaning out every day I wouldn't think you would need to. He will probably start pooing in one area, usually the other side to where you put the food, so you will be able to jsut do that side more often and then the other side every week or so.

My rabbit gets runny poo if he has too much veg. Husband was giving him all the veg peelings and we had a bit of a problem then but we rarely give him veg now as he is in the garden all day so eats plenty of grass and dandelions etc as well as rabbit food.

[justgivemeoneminute]

....needless to say I do remove page 3!

[earlgrey]

LOL I did ask Anna if she thought Floppsy would prefer the travel or the home page!

[justgivemeoneminute]

Daily Mail eh???!!! Mine much prefer The Sun - they enjoy the crosswords...the cryptic version of course.

[cornsilk]

House rabbits are cool! Everyone that sees ours wants one. Ours is really nosey and always has to come and have a look at anyone who comes round.He even puts up with being put in ds2's bed with his cuddly toy line up.

[Bouquetsofdynomite]

I've chickened out of getting a rabbit, they are too nuts. Guinea pigs are so placid and it's so relaxing watching them potter about like little sheep. Plus my cat is a big wuss and can only just handle a GP chasing him, a large rabbit would have him rocking back and forth in a cupboard for the rest of his days .

[earlgrey]

God, this thread has been a real eye-opener, thank you all so much.

Would love to have a house rabbit, but we also have a Springer spaniel that has already halfway bitten through the new hutch, despite us putting chairs there to make it more difficult for him.

Off to WHS then, for a shredder (in fact, that's what dd2 has named one of them). And, of course to tell our delivery man that we may also need to subscribe to the Daily Mail

[jaynehater]

Cautionary note on house rabbits : we had one (Bosco, RIP) and the little ..... lovechild .... had so many bolt holes and routes that no-one could handle him. He ended up living feral IN the house, and I remember a particularly bad period when anyone using the upstairs loo had to check behind the wash-hand basin or he nipped their ankles in passing. HANDLE YOUR HOUSE RABBIT REGULARLY - the little bleeders have capacity for psychosis.

[MamaMaiasaura]

my rabbits eyes are fine

[mytwopenceworth]

Don't use sawdust it irritates their eyes. It's really painful.

[MamaMaiasaura]

OUr bunny has a litter tray in his hutch. Clean that out everyday and the whole hutch once a week. Will clear anything from main cage daily if needed but he always wees in his tray. He also has free run in the garden (and plays football )

[justgivemeoneminute]

House rabbits are lovely and very easy to tame. We had one once - he was a lovely big black and white one and so incredibly friendly.....he particularly enjoyed chewing and I can remember seeing a big blue flash in the hallway once - he'd chewed through the phone cable! Our fault for leaving it hanging down and he was ok although a bit stunned!

I personally find rabbits are much friendlier than guinea pigs but then guinea pigs are also fun to have because they make such a noise at feeding time etc!

[gordieracer]

Why not just have it as a house rabbit, they are easy to train, and really sweet when they run up and down the stairs.

[justgivemeoneminute]

Our lovely binmen don't actually look in our recycling bin ..... so I get away with it!!! ....

Sawdust is ok and very good at soaking up but not good at cleaning hutches out (outside) on a windy day!!

[gibberish]

Aargh why didn't I see this thread earlier? Just been out and bought two guinea pigs (our cat was killed on the road this morning ) and have bought a HUGE bag of sawdust. It's driving me nuts already.

[Bouquetsofdynomite]

Confused about people putting pooey shredded paper in their recycling bins, must have a very different system to ours!
I used to have a bit of lino on the bottom that could be scraped and/or washed down because big bits of newspaper take forever to compost down. Used to clean my freerange outdoor pig every couple of weeks before he died (at a happy, healthy 4yrs old I might add.)
May invest in a paper shredder when I get new GPs next month - seems a good way to eek out hay. They won't be freerange so will try harder on the old frequency.
Good tip for preventing flystrike with rabbits is to plant lavender either side of the hutch apparently.

[justgivemeoneminute]

Guinea pigs and potty training??? Err a complete no-go area - they just poo where they're stood at the time....they've no table manners at all!

[cornsilk]

Rabbits are really easy to train to poo in one place. Don't know about guinea pigs tho'. You could let the rabbit run around in the house when you are in and train it to use a litter tray. We put old towels in ours and put the poo down the toilet. Then wash towels obviously! He's really good - he'll poo in it if I put him in it or he'll go by himself.
Your pet shop owner sounds scary!

[justgivemeoneminute]

I do clean my pigs out every other day but then they are out in their run when the weather is good - if animals are kept in hutches all day they would need cleaning out daily, especially in view of the warm weather and problem with flies etc.

[Misdee]

my rabbit has the run of the garden during the day, so his hutch is spotless. i change the bedding once a week, ut generally its dry with just a few pellets in there.

the guinea pigs seem to poop and wee more in there hutch. which means ai cl;ean it 2-3 times a week.

[canmummy]

Once I discovered which corner our rabbits used as a "toilet corner" I bought a special rabbit litter tray which is a sort of triangular plastic tray for them to poo in. I put sawdust in here and tipped it out every day as the rest of the hutch was still clean, found this worked really well

[cece]

I use newspaper flat at bottom of cage and then sawdust but my rabbit is an outdoors one. Where she sleeps is newspaper, smal amount of sawdust and straw.

The toilet corner gets cleaned out daily , the rest once a week.

However I put the whole lot onto the compost. Newspaper, sawdust... the lot. Seems OK so far, as it dries out the piles of grass in it.

[tatt]

unless your rabbit is stuck in the hutch all day ( and then you should find it a new home) it doesn't need to be totally cleaned out daily unless it has the runs. Remove any poop and wet areas and do a full clean once a week.

A single rabbit will be bored and so will shred the newspaper for you. The hitch may look like a bomb has gone off in there but I just remove anything that blocks their exit and leave them to it.

We put a bit of wood chip underneath the newspaper to soak up anything that gets through. However when the rabbit has access to a run at all times they mostly use that instead of their hutch so less cleaning to do.

A healthy rabbit will normally clean itself. Some are more liable to get runs but give mainly hay and grass and they will improve.

[justgivemeoneminute]

Also shredded newspaper can be put in your recycling bin rather than your household waste bin so easier to get rid of whereas sawdust goes into the household waste bin and fills it up very quickly and if you're anything like us with fortnightly collections for both its a bit of a nightmare!

[justgivemeoneminute]

sorry forgot to mention - line the whole of the hutch with newspaper - not shredded - that way it keeps the base of the hutch clean - I bought a cheapie shredder and shred all our newspapers - it works a treat.

I used to use hay which I bought by the bale for many years but had an incident only a few weeks ago where one of my guineas got a sharp piece of hay stuck in his eye (where he had burrowed in to some fresh hay) - he became very ill and developed and abscess and had to be pts. The vet said that some hay contains such needle like type pieces and he suggested using newspaper as bedding because when shredded it can be so soft and very warm for them.

(I've just changed my id - was Barney2!)