When it comes to cleaning up your rabbit’s cage, we recommend that you do so once every day, and once a week. The daily clean up shouldn’t take you more than 10 minutes, but you should be more thorough on your weekly clean up. It’s understandable if you have a tight schedule, but it’s important to make it a habit, so your pet can lead a healthy life. If you want to make it easier on yourself, we highly recommend training your rabbit to use a litter box. Please read on for a few guidelines to cleaning an indoor rabbit cage.
Daily clean up
Begin your clean up by taking out the bowl and water bottle, to wash and rinse them. Also, make sure to remove any food leftovers. Refill the water bottle, and remove any soiled wood shavings or hay.
If there’s a litter box in the cage, you also need to clean it up. If you have a thin layer of litter it’s a good idea to rinse and wash it every day. If you keep a thicker layer of litter, you can just scoop out the poop, but make sure to wash it every third day at least. While you clean it, you might notice a hard material stuck to it. It’s a calcium deposit resulting from rabbit urine. Use vinegar so you can wipe it off. Keeping a close look on your pet’s residues on a daily basis will let you notice if there’s anything wrong with him.
Weekly clean up
At the end of the week is when you’ll provide a more thorough clean up. You need to take everything out, and place your rabbit under supervision or in another cage. Use hot water to wash and rinse everything. The cage, litter box, bowl, and any other accessory you keep inside the cage. To make it easier you could use your tub.
We recommend disinfecting the cage every other week. Make sure you rinse the cage extremely well, because disinfectant can harm your rabbit. Using it on wood it not a good idea, because it soaks up the chemicals. Use something like bleach (one part to ten parts of water), and after rinsing the cage, let it dry under the sun. Even on a cloudy day, ultraviolet light will work as a sanitizer, and break down further any chemical residue.
Tips
If you have trouble removing calcium deposits, let the vinegar soak for 10 or 20 minutes, and you should be able to wipe it off. To make it convenient to use, keep some vinegar in a spray bottle.
You can make it easier on yourself, by getting a cage that’s easier to clean. If you see extremely high cages they are probably sugar glider cages, it’s better for your rabbit if you instead get a multi-level cage. But, you should ask yourself if you’re willing to tear it down each week and clean it up. It’s better to have a smaller clean cage, than a dirty big one.
If you want to make the clean up easier, think about spaying or neutering your pet. It’s good for their health, and it reduces territorial urine spraying. Also, think about training your rabbit to use a litter box.
Giving good maintenance to indoor rabbit cages doesn’t have to be hard, but it is a matter of getting used to the process. Following these guidelines, you can be sure that your pet will have greater chances of living a healthy life.