I once read that you could make a hole and put mesh in their toilet corner, tray underneath - any ideas on that?
Yup ,
Our first domestic pet wabbit was an old English one weighed in at over 7 pounds when fully grown .
His cage was a four foot by four foot by four foot 1 '2 thick walled pine packing case that had been well creosoted several months before we got him.
I made the bottom 2 inches a suspended floor using 1/4 " thick round stainless steel rods set 1/3 inch apart over about one foot of the day area . The whole underneath was a slide in /out tray with a pee & pellet gully sticking outside of the cage. it fitted loosely into the under croft area and had deflection batons to guide any droppings and pee onto the tray .
The rest of his cage was a solid floor and covered in a good two inches of barley straw , they eat this like a cow chews cud and seem to enjoy it better than wheat or oat straw .
I divided the cage so that he had 14 inches sleep area on even more barley straw ,
he rarely peed in or pooped in his bed area .
It didn't take him long to use the grid floor area for his toilet needs .
The bed area was a secondary door area on the inside of the cage and there was a 9 inch round hole in the hinged dividing wall between the bed and the day area so it gave a two inch lip to keep his bedding in . There was also a two inch lip by the SS rods , again to try and keep the bedding off the rods.
His feeder and water were removable stainless steel bowls fastened a few inches up from the floor .
It was a simple case that every other day I could slide out the soiled pee tray and hose it off into a 5 gallon bucket . then put the tray insert back in the hutch without disturbing the rabbit.
There was a day pen exit made from a sliding pop hole plate of aluminium that was lockable in place , when He got fed in the mornings he had the pop hole opened up to give him as much room as possible .
Every Saturday or Sunday he was put in his Mordant day pen the pop hole closed and the whole cage was cleaned then scrubbed in a weak Dettol solution and sprayed in a bit of clean solution once things had been rinsed off.
The cage was then refilled with barley straw & Baylin was allowed access if & when he wanted.
In sub zero temps below minus 5 oC we simply did a scrape out rather than a full wash out . Our winters over there were from mid Nov to mid March with many a day well below 5 oC , so come spring everything got a super duper de gunge and disinfecting.
Re the covering of the cage
Myxi RHD and various other diseases are spread by fly /gnat /mozzie strikes on the animals bum , genitals or eye and ears area.
Keep things clean and make sure the dung heap or pee drain site are well away from the hutch , Cover the hutch before dusk arrives to keep them little beggars away.
Old Axminster carpet is brill as the carpet will fold easily one way and drop down close to the cage .
In any case use a wooden "T " ( top bar to the top ) to hold the carpet to the cage somewhere around the bottom four inches & secure the top end by using several brick , don't nail it on as it is easily moved when needed if it rots or gets damages etc. plus the brick can be used to hold it back when you lift it up each morning.
Rabbits will eat anything when hungry , frozen nor not so whatever grow in your garden is usually OK save for Rhubarb leaves , tomato & potato tops or banana skins which are poisonous .
Oven dried potato & other veg & fruit peelings such as apple or pear peelings are a good stand by when greenery is hard to get because of deep snow . Mum use to put them in the oven on newspaper after she'd finished using the oven , I took them out the oven in the morning and put them in one of three big old screw top sweet jars till they were needed .
Topic: starting with rabbits.... advice please :) (Read 10664 times)
