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Forum BEHAVIOR how much do you spend on litter?

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    • Adam
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        I guess on a per full-grown rabbit basis.  I am trying to be frugal, but I am at about 12 dollars per rabbit per month now.

         

         I have a couple small cages that act as portable litter, so I can move them from their room to the livingroom and back.  These I change twice a week.  Then I have three small bins in their room alone used for litter, also change those about twice a week. 

         

        I feel like it’s so wasteful, if I could get rid of a few soaked pellets (I use paper and aspen pellets) and their poops, I could save a lot, but that seems to be a full time career.  No easy way I can think of to do it.


      • tobyluv
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          I’m not sure how much I spend on litter. My 2 rabbits aren’t great about using litter boxes, they use them sometimes, but at other times they pee on the towel that is under the litter box or another towel that is near the litter box, so I don’t use at much litter as others might. I do know that the least expensive litter is the wood stove pellets (plain, no accellerants) or the horse stall pellets (Equine Pine is one brand). They come in large bags, maybe 40 pounds, but they only cost a few dollars. You could find them at home improvement stores, hardware stores, feed stores or Tractor Supply.


        • LittlePuffyTail
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            I have 2 rabbits and I probably only spend about $15.00 or so per month for both. I go through about a bag and a half of Yesterday’s News a month. I change their litter boxes about every 2 days. I save money by not filling the litter boxes up too full. I just put enough to absorb and keep their feet dry.


          • Adam
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              Well the stuff I buy is cheaper than yesterday’s news. And I put shallow amounts in all their containers, but what sucks is they like to kick it all around so there’s none in the middle, and then they often pee right there.

              Equine Pine interests me, but is the pine safe for them?


            • LittlePuffyTail
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                You can buy a litter box guard (it’s like a grid that prevents them kicking out the litter). I think the BB store sells them.


              • tobyluv
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                  Yes, Equine Pine is pelleted, and pine in pelleted form is safe for rabbits. It doesn’t have the dangerous aromatic oils that pine shavings have.


                • LBJ10
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                    I went to Petsmart last week and about cried when I saw the price of Yesterday’s News had shot up to $20 a bag. I go through maybe a bag per month-ish? I don’t know, I don’t really pay attention. I was running low on money, so I stopped at the hardware store and picked up 40lbs of wood stove pellets for under $5. They don’t seem to know the difference. LOL


                  • JackRabbit
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                      We used to go through tons of litter, especially with Moshi digging and mixing up the “used” litter with the unused in the litterboxes. Got the litterbox screens from the BB store and they have cut our litter use drastically! Just dump the poop and hay on top f the screen, scoop out the wet spots in the litter, change it all out as needed. Best thing ever!


                    • Vienna Blue in France
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                        Zero dollars/euros/pounds.

                        I use old newspapers for bottom layer to soak wee (and remove easily for cleaning), and then used shredded paper from work for comfy spongy top layer where the little black poops can be easily spotted and removed if necessary. Bun decides one spaghetti like paper-shred must always be chomped on arrival into litter tray – she looks like the dogs in Lady and the Tramp sucking up the spaghetti. So funny!

                        Just make sure the shredded paper – if eaten – is not heavy with ink like photos or adverts.


                      • vanessa
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                          $5 for a bag of wood pellets. I tried aspen shavings and they did great for odor control, but not great for absorption, and I had pee leaking through the puppy pee pads. $17 for a bag of extra large pee pads, $12 for a bag of regular pee pads. 4 litter boxes. 3 of them are changed every day. One is changed every second day. My boys are big pee-ers. I use timothy hay over the grate, at $17 per bale. I have 4 Bunnies.
                          Per month – 1 bag extra large pee pads, 1/7 bag large pee pads, 1/6 bale of hay = $21.5 per month for 4 bunnies.


                        • BB & Tiny
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                            The rabbit rescue uses a fan screen to sift the litter boxes between complete changes. A bag of wood pellets at a feed store is $ 4, pet store or hardware store between 5-$7 dollars. I can’t be bothered sifting and change mine everyday, even the rescue bunnies I care for in my home. I have no idea how people monitor their rabbits bathroom habits with days of use. For a few cents a day I want to make sure mine are dry and in clean litter boxes.


                          • vanessa
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                              Bunluv, I agree with you. Also – 4 bunnies make a lot of pee. That’s a lot of ammonia. It takes about 12 hours after a fresh box change before I start to smell it. By 24 hours, I am ready to not smell it anymore. That’s just me. And when I get down there and give it a good sniff – I imagine I am a bunny – smelling that strong ammonia smell. Yeesh… I could probably get away with using a bit more wood pellets… That reminds me. How much wood pellets do you use in a litter box and for how many bunnies per box?


                            • skysblue
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                                maybe $100/yr. i stocked up at least a year worth of carefresh since it was on sale.. i change once every 5 or 6 days


                              • BB & Tiny
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                                  I put enough in just so I don’t see the bottom. Maybe a bit less as my rabbits weigh in at 2.4 and 3.2 lbs. Not a huge amount of pee coming from those two really. I could get away with a smaller litter box but they both like to be in it together at times.

                                  @skysblue I know what you mean when my dad took me for a bale of hay I stocked up on wood pellets ( 4 bags ) because they are awkward to carry home.


                                • LittlePuffyTail
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                                    LBJ10- Have you tried Walmart for YN? Here at our Wal-Mart it’s cheaper than any pet or grocery store.


                                  • Dymii
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                                      I use Kay-tee clean and cozy litter, it’s about $18 on sale and it usually lasts over a month for me. I clean out his litter pan daily, but there’s a few other places in his ‘bathroom cage’ that he likes to go. I just get some gloves and scoop up only the messy parts and refill the litter there. That cage has litter all across it though for comfort, so I use a bit more than I could. His other cage doesn’t have a litter guard around the edges so I don’t put any in there, and he seems pretty content with it!
                                      1 bunny, 1 pack of litter about every 5-6 weeks.. about 14-15 dollars a month.


                                    • Desic737
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                                        I used to use a product similar to Yesterday’s News- however, I’m an avid bunny box cleaner, and a 26 dollar bag lasted me about three weeks!

                                        My local feed store carries wood pellets (similar to Equine Pine, I believe it’s called GreenTree) for 6 bucks. 40 pounds of litter! Switched to those a month ago and haven’t run out yet!


                                      • Adam
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                                          Thanks for the tip about the horse pellets. I found a 40 pound bag, 6 dollars even after taxes. I ordered some wire mesh screens off amazon, and cut them to the size of the litter boxes. I used wire hangers to create a frame around them, and a layer of foil tape followed by a layer of gorilla tape to bind it together. I would have bought what they sold in the store here, but it needs to fit what I’ve got.

                                          Works well so far, and is cheap to make. The mesh stuff I bought at amazon I wanted to have larger holes than a screen door, and it does, but not by much. To save money, you may want to just get a roll of screen door screen.

                                          In theory, this could reduce my costs to about 10% of what I was paying or better. The litter change alone will do almost half of that. Very happy for now, but my rabbits are good at defeating my attempts to make things easier.


                                        • LBJ10
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                                            LPT – No, I haven’t tried Walmart. I avoid that place like the plague. LOL


                                          • Adam
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                                              Ok… DO NOT USE A FINE/THIN MESH…

                                              My rabbits decided to claw and tear it up today. I didn’t know it was that weak or that the holes were even large enough to get a grip on, but this is an utter failure with several hours up in smoke.

                                              I am going to order a 1/4″ galvanized mesh.


                                            • Levy
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                                                I only have 1 bun but I use the petal brand of crumbled paper bedding, $15 for the big bag, lasts maybe 2 months. Though now it will also be in the cat litter box and the mouse cages, so may try the horse pellets lol.


                                              • Adam
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                                                  Ok thought I should update in this saga.

                                                  The first thing one should know about these pellets is that unlike paper pellets and even other types of wood pellets like Aspen, these very quickly turn to dust. Not like floaty dust, since it’s moist it stays put. My bun room smells like a wood shop class. Not a complaint.

                                                  I’ve been using these pellets exclusively for two weeks. The bag is probably half gone, but the initial outset of filling up two small cages and three small litter trays did most of that. I’ve used a LOT less than I did of the paper kind, but that’s not the fault of these pellets but of the screens I made.

                                                  After the fine mesh broke… What a horrible purchase that was. I mean the stuff was so weak I could pull it apart with little effort. Anyways, here is the stuff I bought for the SECOND attempt: http://amzn.com/B000BWY7UQ I made screens to go over the litter. It wasn’t easy, and I suggest pliers, wire snips, and tough gloves.

                                                  However, I can’t emphasize enough how much litter this is saving me. I would normally have changed all litters 3 times entirely by now. Dumping the entire bins and cages and filling up two trash bags worth over 10 days. However, at least half the litter in use is the initial litter. That’s about five times the use per pellet. I realize I could probably let them dirty their litter longer than a half-week, but it just starts to look so gross, all the poop and wet hay etc.

                                                  It gets even better though. Because these pellets turn to a kind of powder, you can use a vacuum with a screen on it, or keep the litter screen in place and get SOME of the used up litter vacuumed without disturbing the rest of it. Obviously eventually you have to add some more pellets. If you can manage to have a shop vac with a screen over it, you can probably do very well. I just use a hand vac, and sometimes I scoop out the litter which may be wet or dry depending.

                                                  Let’s talk downsides. I know my situation is unique, but my two buns have a fairly large room just for them, rather than a cage. They decrease my property value every day lol. Sometime I should post pics, they have the good life. I carry them around outside of there in small cages, one each. These double as litter boxes. The first downside is that, at least at first, they were not fans of the mesh under their feet. However they act pretty normally about it now.

                                                  The biggest downside, so far, is that this mesh stuff is hard to shape properly. You can get your dimensions right, but it comes in a tube, and has a permanent wish to deform just enough to make your life hell if your goal is to make it lay perfectly flat on top of the litter. It just doesn’t want to do it. It’s good enough, but it could be better if it would just lay nice and flat. Also, poop can get jammed into the holes. A tighter mesh would work. This is 1/4, and the other stuff I got was 1/16th, but was advertised as 1/8th. I think true 1/8th inch sized mesh would work best, as long as it is durable enough.

                                                  Worth noting I don’t know how well this arrangement will hold up over time.


                                                • lillian
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                                                    I get kind of like the stove pellets, but are actually labeled as bedding pellets. I spend about $7 a bag, and it lasts me about 3 weeks between 2 bunny cages and 2 poopy boxes. I try to clean their cages, at the longest, once a week. I think its a 30 or 40 pound bag? but I could be wrong. I get it from a local feed store and its generally not real dusty. The only downside to it is our house smells quite strongly of wood with every cleaning


                                                  • Chrystie
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                                                      I have 5 Holland Lops and 4 litter boxes. 2 big and 2 small. I spend roughly $25 per bunny per month on litter. I buy 1 of the big bags of the oxbow and two bags of the gray carefresh every two weeks. The two small litter boxes get changed daily and the two big ones get completely changed out every other day. I’m sure I could probably get away with doing it less but I do not want my house to smell. I’m certain I border on the OCD side of things but I’m fine with that.

                                                      Chrystie


                                                    • Tia
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                                                        Well, since Roza isn’t litter trained yet, I only have experience from when Milly was alive. Milly was seven months old. She went through a large bag of Yesterday’s news about every 6 weeks. She was starting to dig and throw her litter so we bought a 10″x16″ cooling rack (tried the hardware mesh and had the shaping problem as well) from Walmart along with a dishpan. We cut the dishpan open on one end and bent the cooling rack around it so it would fit (There’s a video on YouTube that shows how to make one similar to what we made. Milly passed away before we got a chance to put it in her cage to try it. We did put it in Roza’s cage and she is too big for it, so we put it inside of the old litter box so she won’t pee all over (if she ever decides to litter train) and she seems to like it just fine to stand on while eating her hay. I am going to figure out a different box that will fit the cooling rack and Roza better and hopefully she will use it soon.


                                                      • vanessa
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                                                          @Chrystie, I agree with you on changing the boxes every day. My 4 live in the bunny/bird room. THe hallway leads to 3 bedrooms – so the bunny bedroom is realy close to my bedroom. I dont’ want it to smell either. It doesn’t take much for me to smell it. And if I can smell it from 5ft up, imagine how it smells to the bunnies. All that amonia… But I don’t use carefresh – since I have 23 birds and 2 dogs and a cat and a fish tank – I use cheaper litter than carefresh. I do use puppy pads under the litter in the boxes, and those are pricey. I have 5 litter boxes between the 4 bunnies.


                                                        • Adam
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                                                            Posted By vanessa on 1/17/2016 1:51 PM

                                                            @Chrystie, I agree with you on changing the boxes every day. My 4 live in the bunny/bird room. THe hallway leads to 3 bedrooms – so the bunny bedroom is realy close to my bedroom. I dont’ want it to smell either. It doesn’t take much for me to smell it. And if I can smell it from 5ft up, imagine how it smells to the bunnies. All that amonia… But I don’t use carefresh – since I have 23 birds and 2 dogs and a cat and a fish tank – I use cheaper litter than carefresh. I do use puppy pads under the litter in the boxes, and those are pricey. I have 5 litter boxes between the 4 bunnies.

                                                            I don’t know how my rabbits feel about their own smell, but whenever I clean the smell of their pee of the floor it seems to make them want to pee there again lol.  I think I may have become completely desensitized to the smell, because I never notice it anymore.


                                                          • Chrystie
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                                                              That’s exactly what I’m afraid of Adam, that my house smells like a barn and I don’t know it. Lol. I always ask people that I know will tell me the truth. Obviously, none of us can really know how the bunnies feel about their own smell but it’s not all about them all of the time.

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                                                          Forum BEHAVIOR how much do you spend on litter?