# Oh my heavens the smell



## PrettyPaisley (May 18, 2007)

Holy cow. We got 2 pet rabbits for the girls last Saturday night. After one night they went from their bedroom to the closet in the far end of the house to the out building. We've been cleaning out their cage each day and today it was my turn. I thought I was going to puke when I got a whiff of the pan liner. :shocked: I *thought* I wanted to get a couple of rabbits to breed for meat but now I'm not sure. 

What can I do for the smell? It is possible to house them so the urine falls to the ground and reserve the pellets for the garden? If the urine does fall to the ground will the smell be absorbed fully? Or fairly fully?


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## Guest (Apr 5, 2010)

Putting some pine bedding in the pan will absorb the urine and a lot of the smell. Keeping them in wire cages where the droppings fall straight to the ground is the easiest and least smelly, in my opinion. Much of the urine will be absorbed into the ground (depending on your soil type, clay would not be good for this). Solid droppings can be shoveled out on a regular basis. Adding some lime over top of the ground after you shovel will help neutralize any urine odor.


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## MaggieJ (Feb 6, 2006)

Do you have them in a solid bottomed cage? If so, that will make the smell worse because it traps the moisture - urine and/or spilled water.

Wood pellets work well for absorbing moisture and controlling odour. They break down into sawdust and make great mulch when mixed with the bunny manure. You can use the ones made for horses or stove pellets. 

A feed containing the plant yucca may also help with the odours.

Most meat rabbit operations have cages with very strong welded wire floors with a grid size of 1" by 1/2". The excrement falls through, either into a tray or onto the ground. Earth can usually handle a lot of urine before it would become smelly and ground horticultural limestone can be sprinkled under the cages to help with the odours. Good for the soil too.


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## a7736100 (Jun 4, 2009)

I find that a lot of poop cuts down the smell. Pee soaked into the poop smells a lot less that free standing pee. Only think is when I do empty the cage the pee that filtered down to the bottom still stink.

Out doors there is little odor if the pee soaks into the ground.


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## rabbitgeek (Mar 22, 2008)

We kept rabbits in a garage. We used fans for air circulation and air conditioning for summer comfort.

We used trays under the cages to catch droppings. If you are going to clean every day, put a handful of pine shavings in the tray in the spot where the rabbits usually go to poop. 

Rabbits will usually use the same corner as their potty corner. 

The pine shavings do a pretty good job of reducing that smell.

When we took rabbits to the county fair, they stayed there for 5 days over trays that had two inches of pine shavings. Very little smell there too.

One trick we learned was to use a dustpan to scoop the waste from the trays and dump it into a plastic bucket.

Have a good day!
Franco Rios


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## BackfourtyMI. (Sep 3, 2007)

Our rabbits are at one end of our barn on the outside in hutches with legs so all the waste falls through the bottom & onto the ground. I don't think they smell that bad but we also have goats & ducks down there too.
The waste is easy to clean up & use for garden's, etc.


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## Caprice Acres (Mar 6, 2005)

I've had multiple rabbits and their litters in the same spot for over a year now, without having to clean underneath or anything. No smell, either. The top layer of cages is separated from those below by a slanted piece of scrap metal, so that urine drains down. It's not sloped enough that poo rolls down to the ground directly, but it is easy to push to the back where it drops behind the bottom row onto the floor. I even use a hose to spray the surfaces down regularly, and still no smell. 

Every once in a while I have more rabbits than cages, so I use dog kennels in the barn. In the winter, I tend to just throw more bedding on so the rabbit is dry, until the levels of bedding is getting too much. I then drag it out to the garden and dump - and boy, can those smell! Thankfully, only when the bottom wet layers are exposed. They don't smell as long as you keep a dry layer on top - and in the winter, the layering of bedding actually produces heat. In summer, I tend to be quicker to change out bedding. 

if the rabbits have a solid floor to their cage, put bedding in it, at least a couple inches. If it is a wire floor with a tray, put the same amount of bedding, at least to absorb the urine.


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## Jay27 (Jan 11, 2010)

I had an accidentially-bred momma that delivered when the weather was still cold. I brought her in (until she didn't care for her babies, then I put her in the freezer). In the couple of days she was inside, I couldn't believe how much she stunk! I can't smell my rabbits outside AT ALL. I had her in a wire cage with a litter pan below. I had pine shavings in the litter pan. I replaced the pine shavings with a mix of cat litter (plain clay, no fragrance or additives), cedar shavings, and 'stall fresh'. The cedar/litter/stallfresh cut the smell to nothing. I still cleaned it everyday, though. I had 2 litter pans so I could just pick up the cage and set it on the clean one. I just scooped out the soiled areas since my red satins are SO GOOD about pottying in one corner. 

(On a mini-sidebar-rant: 'Stall Fresh' is hands down one of my favorite products. It is an ammonia neutralizer, similar to lime, but WAY better. I use if for everything. It has essential oils in it too that give a nice fragrance plus mild antibiotic/antifungal/antimicrobial properties. You use WAY less stall fresh than lime and get better results. Works great in cat boxes, chicken coops and horse stalls/trailers. We always bring it when we go somewhere with the horses. I HATE stinky stalls at shows! Yuck! I don't want my horse breathing that stinky ammonia air. I figured I'd rant about that for a bit... I am in no way affiliated with the company or anyone who sells it... just an engineer who loves a good product when I find one!)


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## trinityoaks (Sep 17, 2008)

I keep my rabbits in the garage. They have wire cages with poo pans underneath. I put about 2" of peat moss in the bottom of the poo pans to absorb the pee. As long as we empty the poo pans once a week, they don't smell.


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## arachyd (Feb 1, 2009)

They definitely smell less when they're outside and dirt can take a lot of urine without smelling bad. Another thing to consider is that the urine from male rabbits is much, much stinkier than the urine from female rabbits.


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## freedomfrom4 (Jul 27, 2009)

The feed store has 2 foods and the only difference is that one has something to help with the urine smell. (Yes I know I feed pellets from the store, but at least they get fed :shrug: )


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## Skykomish (May 28, 2008)

Baking soda in the pan with wood shavings?


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## lisa's garden (Apr 1, 2010)

If they are both males they will start to spray their pee to mark their territory. So you can take them to the vets to have them 'fixed' if they are going to be pets. Or you can put them in separate cages away from each other.

Rabbit pee is smelly if it gets concentrated in the cage. Some rabbits will use a litter box and some will use the nesting box if it is permanent.


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## dancingfatcat (Jan 1, 2008)

A trick I learned from a breeder of show rabbits is to put vanilla extract in their water.Apparently they do this at shows to keep the smell down. It works wonders!!!I have used imitation and it works just as well. I have two FA inside, yes they are pets and you can sure tell if I run out or someone forgets to add it to the water. 
I just add enough to make the water turn a little brown, doesn't hurt the bunny and they smell like vanilla . Try it, it's cheap and you have nothing to lose.


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