[Carina]

Hi!

I have a problem!
I have 2 indoor rabbits, and ofcourse they eat a lot of hay.
But it's hay all over the apartment!
No matter what I do, it's hay everywhere.
I have to vacuum the whole apartment minimum twice a day if I shall keep it hay-free.

And it's hay all over their cage too xD I rinse the doormats regularly, but they're so messy!
And they doesn't always use their toilets either.
Even though they are neutered a long time ago :S

I'm considering building a second cage so that they can live outside in the summertime (maybe in the winter too).

Are your rabbits as messy as mine?

PS: It's wall-to-wall-carpet in most of the apartment. It doesn't make things easier

 

[Jess]

Do you have a garage or somewhere out of the house you can store the hay? I keep a bale in a huge box in my garage, and I go out there to clean the litterbox and refill it with hay. I have 5 bags of different types of hay that are stored on shelves in my room too.

 

[Carina]

Nah, I don't have a garage or something.
:\
Maybe I should change hay in the bathroom xD

 

[Jess]

Haha, the bath tub would be the perfect size to fit a bale of hay it!

 

[Purple-Hops]

I buy small bags of hay and store it in a tote box on top of the closet where Kayshie lives. Yes, we have carpet too and there's always hay laying around. (I don't vacuum twice a day though!!!! Only once a week!) I guess its not as bad in my room :/ UM, Try keeping the hay in a room with no carpet, like the bathroom (As someone mentioned) maybe invest in an air exchanger to clear the air from particles ?

 

[Carina]

Thanx for your suggestions!
I'll try that.

 

[BarkingPup]

I keep my bag of hay (going to upgrade to bale buuut not sure where to put it) in a separate room (with flooring and no rug). When Hamm's hay rack needs to be refilled i remove it , place the bag of hay on the floor, refill and replace. Then sweep up the loose hay and voila, clean for five seconds XD

Hamm's cage is and always will be messy. If I tried to keep up with it I'd be cleaning it every hour. He likes playing with toilet paper tubes stuffed with hay. I tried to minimize the damage by using oat hay instead of orchard grass but with a cat that obsessively pulls hay from his hay rack and Hamm himself happily pulling chunks and eating a single strand while the rest fall to the floor.... *sigh*

I 'scrape' his cage every second day while doing his litter box and sweep every day. I have also discovered that my broom has super powers and can sweep rug with a lot of effort (but still less effort than dragging my ridiculously huge vacuum out and having to deal with the cats). I have also acquired the most amazing thing evar: a dust buster. My personal hand held messenger from heaven that I am quickly killing with how much I use it.

So, yeah, in short my one rabbit is pretty messy. Don't get me started on the cats, though!

 

[Carina]

Lol.

I have 1 cat, and she's not that messy (but she plays with the food though!).

I'm going to move the rabbits into another room (but there's carpet on the floor there too), so the livingroom will be free of rabbits xD
But the hay problem. Hmm.

They are dragging hay from their litterbox and all over their cage, and then the hay falls on the floor.
Messy, messy rabbits! (But very cute)

In April/May they are going to live outside. So I won't (hopefully) have that hay problem for a long time.

 

[Purple-Hops]

I contemplated a dust buster but never took myself up on it :/

 

[BarkingPup]

@ Carina: You are lucky yer one cat is not too much of a monster. Sugar insists on eating her food off her plate so she'll drag whatever bloody morsel across the rug (blood is hard to get out of rug...) then eat part of it and leave it there to sink into the fibers.

Skooma has an obsession with knocking stuff over and will knock everything off the table. Lipstick, papers, cookies, spoons, glasses, etc. And then Sugar will find a piece of paper and start shredding it, leaving tiny bits of paper strewn everywhere....

I have noticed that hay tends to track so I put the hay bag in a plastic bag. When filling his hay rack I place the rack inside the hay bag so it minimizes the damage.

@Purple-hops: OH MY GAWD I love my dust buster! My vacuum is huge and unwieldy but the mini-vacuum fits anywhere and it's soooo awesome for dust, cat hair and stray litter! Instead of dragging my vacuum up and getting the fan blades I just use mah dust buster! Instead of re-dragging the vacuum out when I've made a mess and already vacuumed I just bring out mah dust-buster! It's name is Shirley

Of course, whether you need one is an entirely different matter. I asked for one for christmas and haven't regretted it since tho.

 

[Dragonrain]

My bunnies are really messy too.

I do what I can to reduce the mess as much as possible but it pretty much comes down to me cleaning up after them at least once a day to keep things looking semi-decent.

I store my hay in a large Tupperware container. I keep the lid on it to keep any of the hay or hay dust from blowing out around the apartment.

For litter boxes...I'll tell you what's worked best for me so far. I got another biiig tupperware storage container and my fiance cut a hole on one end that's a good size for the bunnies to get in and out of the box. I made my own grate for the bottom with hardware cloth. The wire cuts easily with wire cutters but the edges you cut are sharp so I used a dremel to smooth out the sharp areas.

Theeen I made a makeshift hay rack out of a NIC grid. I just gently bent it into a U shape and I attached it to the inside of the litter box. I punched tiny holes in the side of the plastic and attached the hay rack with zip ties.

That set up has been working the best for me so far. The high sides of the plastic bin keep the bunnies from being able to pee or poo over the edge, and the high sides combined with the hay rack keeps most of the hay inside the box. There's still a bit of stray hay, I won't lie, but it's much less than when I was using a regular litter box.

 

[Purple-Hops]

LOL shirley!! Almost daily I've been required to drag in the giant vacuum to clean Coco's Home-Alone mess. -_-

 

[bunz]

Oh, it looks like I'm late to this - I didn't ask the exact same question but close. I guess mine has more to do with feeding hay, but either way, I'm glad to know that someone else is having this problem!

 

[Carina]

Lol

We've moved the rabbits to another room now.
I guess the room they're in now will be messy and etc, but at least the living room will be more free of hay.