Modifying Charcoal's Litter Box II

Previously, I modified Charcoal's litter box and noticed the setup has a flaw - the sides of the trays can collect her urine and her small poops and hays will get stuck as well. Pretty disgusting to clean for me. 

So I went back to Daiso to look for the cat repellent mat. As the large piece were sold out (I presume), so I bought the smaller size instead. 

And I added egg crate above the cat repellent mat. End-user seems to accept her new toilet format. 

I also bought her a new mat for her to rest on. She refused to use it and I wonder why. So I gently told her the mat and the new setup are all for her. After some talking, she started to use it. What an amazing rabbit that needs approval from humans before doing it. 

Meanwhile, a gap between her pen and Cotton's pen is maintained but will slowly narrow by the week. This is some pre bonding work I am doing prior to sending them to board and bond in April. 

Black and White fat buns resting. :D

Modifying Charcoal's Litter Box I

It's time to improvise Charcoal's litter box since she seems to be pretty consistent at peeing in the litter box. It's a little unhygienic for her to step on the urine soaked cat bedding and occasional bedding pellets or poops get kicked out of the litter box when she hopped out.

This is her litter box set-up before the modification. 

Pee pad is retained for the latest litter box setup. I also added newspaper beneath the litter box as another layer of absorbent. 

I found this gem at Daiso where everything is $2! This rack is actually dish rack and it may be useful for the smaller litter box that Charcoal is using.

It provides sufficient depth as well!

Ta-da! 

As the holes of the racks are pretty large sized so I need to add on additional mat to protect her legs. So I try out the bath mat......

 

And the egg-crates......

I decided to try both! Ha hahahahahaha 

Ta-da! And the lead lady tested the new setup and she seems to like it!

It has been one day since she used it and so far so good. This shall be her litter box setup for now. :D

New Toilet Mat for the New Year!

Recently I found a bath mat which I think might be worth trying to be used for Cotton's litter box. And it's not expensive (S$2.90 per piece) with thick steady plastic material and expandable too! 

There are only greens left so I bought 2 to try. Here how it's looked like: 

The walking surface of new bath mat also pretty smooth on contact. 

The flip-side of the bath mat shown there are sufficient depth be provided. 

And it is deeper than the egg-crate! 

But due to dimension issue, I can only fit on one mat and cable-tied one piece egg crate to cover most of the litter box surface. 

The holes of the mat also very similar to the egg-crate hence I do not worry about poops retention on it. As for the pee, Cotton has tendency to pee at corners hence pee retention also minimal to nil. My next experimental candidate - uncle Koogle! 

Their New Litter Box Setup

Ever since I put them in 100% Oxbow Tim hays diet from Sun to Fri, they really pee a lot. Well, hays are drying so it's natural for them to drink more water to quench their thirst. They drink as much as 2L of water per day. The litter box is too soaked with their pee that it makes my cleaning experience horrible and disgusting. 

As they are being fed daily with just Tim hays, their poops also become big and rounded. Another problem arises as a result of the bigger poops' size is that some poops will get stuck on the cat repellent and the space between the egg crate and cat repellent. 

So let's refresh the memory how the cat repellent and egg crate in my litter box for them looks like: 

The depth is also not high in this setup so I decided to improvise again!

But the combined metal mesh is a little larger (protruded out of litter tray) for my micro-space bonding experiment. So I overlaid the mesh at the middle and clipped them together so that the combined mesh will fit just nice on top of the litter tray. 

I added the egg crate and cable-tied it on top of the mesh because the mesh openings are too big for bunnies' feet. The latest setup has the combined mesh overlaid at middle. 

Can you see the overlaid mesh just near Cotton's butt? 

In this new setup, there're more depth created to contain their pees and also their big poops can drop directly into the tray without getting stuck in between. The most plus point is during the changing of their litter box, I do not need to remove those stucked wet poops which clumped to their fallen loose hays and pee via light shaking and manual picking approach. 

Cost of setup? $0. I reuse existing materials I already have! :D 

Renovating the newlywed litter box again!

So they are bonded and bonded rabbits tend to eat together so Cotton and Mi-yeon also make no differences.

I have a strict discipline for all my bunnies - must eat inside their litter box except treats for exercise. 

Originally, I combined their litter boxes together (Size: 41.5cm X 30.5cm X 10.5cm (Height)) but their food tray cannot be placed together. So one of them would have to pop their head over in order to eat together. But that's still acceptable until when they tried to eat the food at the hanging metal bowls side. They would have to squeeze and usually they took turn to eat when comes to food at the metal bowls. 

Ok, so that's not going to work well. So I tried to recycle by using the cage drawer since it's larger at size. I also bought the plastic grid from nearby aquarium shops which costs 1 piece for $1. I bought 6 pieces to try. The grid is to reduce bedding and poops being kicked out by them from litter box. 

So far, it seems to work...... until Mi-yeon began her stray peeing spree again. Ok, she wants her private litter box. So a 2nd litter box is placed next to the cage drawer. 

To prevent Mi-yeon from eating outside of the litter box, I added a metal grid to block the access. That night, Mi-yeon seems unhappy with the new addition and stray peed 2 puddles! Argh! 

So I decided to go Toyogo and get the larger tray (40x53x7.6 cm) as I won't need to change 2 litter boxes. I realize that Mi-yeon will stray pee if I did not change their litter box daily. By trial and error, I found a way to trick Mi-yeon that I changed the litter box daily and so far, she does not stray pee for past 2 days. *finger crossed* 

I tricked Mi-yeon that the used litter box was cleaned by re-mixing those un-used bedding with the used. 

Now the couple can eat together instead of taking turns to eat. 

The trip to get the larger tray is worth it.

Rearranging Cotton's litter box again

And here I am re-arranging Cotton's litter box again. Hahahahha this time, Cotton has no more playpen but just his litter box which is placed just outside of our room to convenient him to access his food and do his business 24-7. 

I bought a plastic grid to reduce his stray poops and hays from falling out of his box whenever he jumps out. I was inspired by an article by BW and got a similar grid from my nearby fish shop. And because Mi-yeon will flip the metal bowls, I have since placed the metal bowls for Cotton to use. 

And Cotton seems to adapt well with the new arrangement. But Cotton bit off some of the rubber stopper which support the metal bowls' structure. Although I was able to find some ruminant of the rubber stopper but there is always a risk that he might have swallow some as well. 

So I decided to re-arrange and affixed the metal bowls to tie to a playpen fence. This way, the rubber stopper will not be so accessible to Cotton.  

And there he is, eating and munching his fresh vegetables as usual. I think he's used to his human mummy who will disturb his litter box arrangement once a while. Indeed, with the plastic grid introduced into his litter box, his stray poops and bedding reduced greatly and sometimes, there was none! Thanks BW for sharing. 

I'm also so glad I have Cotton as my furkid. His litter habit is excellent too! 

2nd attempt to split his playpen for Bunny #2

2nd attempt to split Cotton's 5-pieces playpen to prepare for Bunny #2.

The extra 3 fences arrived on the Friday evening

With the help of Betty (HRSS volunteer), she provided some suggestions how to come about it. I also shared with her my first attempt to split equally to 4-piece playpen each but that did not boil well with Cotton. So my plan now was to split unequally - such that the extended playpen space be smaller so that Cotton will continue to enjoy his rest space - from triangle to rectangle. Betty also suggested removing his cage base to free up more space but I was not too sure if Cotton can take so many changes at a go. So I split unequally for one day to see how Cotton reacts to it first before removing his cage base. One thing at a time.

Day 1 after splitting the cage:
 

Splitting the playpen unequally - Left is for bunny #2, Right is Cotton's

 

The extension required use of 2 fences and the 3rd fence which I bought extra is meant for 'Plan B' - in case the 2 bunnies can still fight aggressively with each other despite having a barrier, the 3rd fence will be added as 2nd barrier. The 2 barrier fences will have 5cm space apart.

 

Cotton exploring his renovated playpen

 

He rested at his usual position. So far, so good

So Day 1 seems going OK for Cotton and with the vegetable buffet, Cotton was in a happy mood. So on Sunday evening (today), I removed his cage base completely.

Cage base removed...see how much space was free up!

 

Without the cage base, his log hut is a bit small for him to lie in

 

Top view

 

Cotton's next best resting position

So far, Cotton seems coping fine without his cage base. Betty said Cotton's litter habit, in her opinion, is considered as good but not excellent. Excellent, in her view, means all the poops and urine are contained in the litter box - absolutely no stray poops. Cotton will have a few stray poops at his cage base because he has a tendency to hop out of his litter box while munching his last mouthful full of food in his mouth.

Now I shall monitor how Cotton is coping with the 'new' playpen setup without his cage base and improving his litter habit at the same time. Finger-crossed.

I also shared with Betty about my plan for the bunny #2:
- no free roam at first for obvious reason. It will be living at the smaller space until being bonded with Cotton
- It will also observe how Cotton behaves when Cotton is free-roaming. Hopefully bunny #2 will learn from Cotton the good behaviour.
- Once bonded, the barrier fence will be removed. Whether by then we will allow the bunny #2 to free roam with Cotton or not, will only be decided later. Must see how its litter habit goes.

Betty did not object my plan and so I am happy that my chance to being an adopter of HRSS is one step closer. Well, I have not really decided which bunny #2 I will adopt from - Bunny Wonderland, HRSS, SPCA or random online adoption plea. So I leave everything to God to tell me when the time comes, just like how I adopted Cotton. :)

Litter Tray Liner

I am still trying to fine-tune cleaning Cotton's litter box so that I can clean even faster and yet, environmental friendly at the same time. I read that there are litter box liner available just for the purpose and so I got to try.

 

It's not cheap - 15 pieces for $6, and I want to see if Cotton's urine will seep through the liner or not. At first look, the liner is thicker, smoother and definitely feel better quality.  Anyway, let see how it is set-up.

 

The liner I bought to try

The liner fits my tray perfectly

 

I added the pee pad as an extra protection and prevent Cotton to bite/dig it

 

And the verdict? Absolutely no leakage! Awesome product! However, Cotton's litter box has to be changed every alternative day so this liner is not affordable for my case. So I am going to try double layering the black plastic. Check out my next entry again.

 

The litter box is absolutely dry like Cotton's hay