Why does my bunny's cage STILL smell???

Question

My Bunny is litter box trained and I try to clean the cage and box EVERY DAY scrubbing it with soap and water. The type of litter I use is Pine wood chips...and still I have the strong stail odor of rabbit urine. I'm going to try scrubbing the cage with Lysol next to see if it helps but I still wanna know....What is causing her urine to smell this strong and how can I get rid of it??? Could it be something in her diet??(i feed her grain pellets, alafa hay, and a seed mix) I had a rabbit before this one (a male) and it didnt even come close to smelling like this...

Answer 1

Female rabbits do have a stronger urine odor than males. Does it have a strong smell all the time, if not she might be in "heat". Meaning they become hormonal at 4-6 months of age and can cause the strong urine odor.

Try cleaning the cage with bleach and water, then dish soap if you want. Just be sure to rinse it well. If the rabbit is on wire and not touching the bottom, you can put baking soda down on the paper. This really helps. If your rabbit is in the bedding, try using wood pellets or the fluffy bedding made by Carefesh. You can buy this type of bedding from Walmart, but I am not sure the brand name of it. If you still want to use a wood shaving, use Aspen instead of Pine because it is much safer. Pine and cedar contains phenols (a natural chemical) and cause changes in the rabbits liver enzymes or respiratory infections.

Don't use any type of cat litter as mentioned. It can be as harmful or even more harmful to your bunny as pine or cedar shavings.

Answer 2

Don't use strong chemicals like lysol or you're going to end up with a very sick rabbit. Try washing the cage and litter tray in a solution of white vinegar and water. If the litter tray has a calcium build up, soak in straight vinegar for a while, scrub and rinse well. It really does work. Use a recycled paper type litter, stop with the seed mix and change the alfafa hay to either timothy or oaten. Alfafa has a high calcium content that could be contributing to the problem.

If none of this makes a difference it could well be some sort of infection.

Answer 3

Hi I use shredded newspaper and Timothy hay in the litter. I also don't have a plastic litter box yet so I use a cardboard box. There are also paper litter trays that you can use for a month, I bought one just haven't tryed it yet. I also put a thick layer of paper on the floor of my rabbit's cage. My cage doesn't smell and my rabbit's not spayed yet. I clean the litter out every week with vinegar and water. once a month I use javix. I would try the newspaper and see if it helps. Maybe switch to Timothy hay slowly. I get free papers. I hope this helps.

Answer 4

Don't use pine in the litter box! It's very harmful to rabbits. Use wood stove pellets they absorb odor much better and they are safe. Is your rabbit sapyed? It could be her hormones causing the strong odor. Plus unspayed females have an 80% cancer rate. Try cleaning the box with a half white vinegar and water solution.

Answer 5

Try these two websites:

http://www.kwcages.com
http://www.klubertanz.com

These two places should carry rabbit deoderizer products.

Or check with the American Rabbit Breeders Association at http://www.arba.net I know the ARBA has several companies that specialize in rabbit deoderizers that advertise in their magazine called Domestic Rabbits.

There are several companies that make rabbit deoderizers to help with the smell of rabbit urine.

Two other things you can try is to sprinkle either lime or baking soda in the bottom of the cage to neutralize the smell. This is best if done on a wire cage that has a wire bottom floor that has a pan underneath it to catch the poop and urine. Just powder coat the bottom of the pan with lime or baking soda. It is also much easier to keep your rabbit clean on a wire floored cage than a solid floored cage, provided your rabbit is not too heavy to be placed on wire. Rabbits with adult weights under 11 pounds can normally be placed on wire floors.

Also, you may want to check what you are feeding your rabbit. Many of the good quality rabbit feeds contain Yucca Schidigera Extract to help keep down odor. Look on the back of of your feed bag or the ticket on the bottom of it under the ingredients to see if it contains yucca.

Answer 6

We used CLR or LimeAway to clean our rabbits' cage. Rabbit urine has some kind of chalky residue in it, and those two products were the only thing we found to clean the (SMELLY)deposit off her cage and collection tray. We never had an odor problem after that. Good Luck! (Be sure to rinse the cage thoroughly afterwards, and use Cedar chips, not pine.)

Answer 7

Time ago I had a female rabbit. To control urine odor I used cat litter, so that I could remove litter agglomerates with urine every day. I used to put some cedar chips on one side, but just because they smelled well and she liked to play with them...

Sometimes the bad odor came from the animal because she had laid on dirty litter. This is why I also washed her every one or two weeks (with warm water and any hair soap I had at hand). She was used to it and loved it too.

Answer 8

I would try different litter. Try using kitty litter instead and get the odor control for multiple cats (Tidy Cat) and at least for me I can't smell the litter box after my cat goes potty. I've used cheaper cat litter and it does make a huge difference with the smell. Good luck!

Answer 9

If it's a fishy smell it could be a urine, bladder or kidney infection.

Answer 10

Try scrubbing the bunny.




No, iam just kidding, I've never had a bunny and dont really know much about them