Rabbits and sawdust!

[mdpis3]

My DH is allergic to everything. Dogs. Cats. Water. Life. Me. You name it. We finally found a pet for our DD that wouldn't leave him a bright red wheezing mess. Mini lop rabbits that live in the garden that DD and I will care for.

All good, right?

Wrong! He isn't reacting at all to the rabbits but the sawdust is f@#%ing killing him. He can't even step out in the garden as its so windy and all the particles are blinding him and sending him running for his inhaler.

Any bunny owners here have a suggestion for an absorbent/odour controlling alternative to saw dust? He seems fine with the hay (which is crazy as grass turns him into a giant walking welt) but the sawdust has to go.

I use wood based cat litter, it's much better at soaking up urine as well. Just make sure you don't buy the clay based litter as this is dangerous for rabbits. Also there's paper based litter called carefresh. You can get it at pets and home and online, it's quite expensive but really good. Hope that helps!

We went and bought some wood based cat litter today, it looks like grey little pellets? It's says they're hypoallergenic and the dust has been removed so we shall see tomorrow. Thanks for the tip!

Yup that's the one, hope it does the trick.

Don't have sawdust, have a litter tray with wooden pellet litter, care fresh or newspaper in it. Sawdust isn't good for bunnies either!

My rabbit used a litter tray with regular cat litter in it. What was the saw dust for?

Put some bunny poo in new tray so they know where to go.

The lady we got the bunnies off of said to have the sawdust throughout the hutch (more of it in the sleeping area) underneath the hay to absorb all the urine? That's how she had the hutches set up that they were in with their Mummy rabbits. I had a rabbit back in the 80's and it had sawdust then too.

Should the wood pellets just be in the litter tray/area that they poop? And then just hay everywhere else on the floor of the open area and then in the sleeping area? Our hutch doesn't have the pull-out metal tray for cleaning, so if there is just hay everywhere and not sawdust, wood pellets or something else extra absorbent, will the wood rot/smell quicker? Believe it or not I did do loads of research prior to getting these bunnies as we waited 8 weeks for them but it's only since googling "my husband is allergic to the rabbits sawdust and I'm going to kill him if he sneezes once more" that I've realised sawdust isn't good for their little noses either. I love the look of the soft carefresh type "bedding" but it's really expensive.

Open to all ideas. Thanks everyone.

Spread newspaper throughout the hutch. Cover with hay, more deeply in the sleeping area. Put a corner litter tray in the corner where they wee and fill this with the wood pellet litter. While you are training them, leave a clump of wet pellets behind when you change the pellets.

MarionHaste - thank you!! They are still tiny (8 weeks) and seem to be weeing/pooping all over at the moment. I've got a corner tray ready to go but how do I determine which area/corner they're favouring?

Rabbits are really clean & will easily just use a litter tray, they don't like to poo etc in bedding.

I would put newspaper or a towel down, my rabbit just had Timothy hay for eating & slept cuddled up in a cat basket, he was an outdoor rabbit but came in at night to his bed.

Don't stress, just pick a corner and see what they do. You may find you cannot train them to poo in it, only wee, but you can probably wrap the poo up as you clear out the paper.