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How to Clean a Rabbit Cage & Best Bunny-Safe Cage Cleaners

How to clean a rabbit cage

If your rabbit is free to roam the whole house or room but still uses an enclosure at night or as a main station, how often does it need to be cleaned? Does it even need deep cleaning, like a rabbit cage?

Whether your rabbit is only in his enclosure at night, or just to eat and use the litter box, it still needs to be cleaned. Not only to keep everything smelling fresh but to keep your rabbit healthy!

Rabbit enclosures can be breeding grounds for bacteria, mold, and bugs. All of these can grow and thrive in your rabbit’s enclosure within a week or two and are harmful to everyone!

Luckily, you’ve come to the right place. Keep reading to learn all about cleaning your rabbit’s enclosure.

How Often Should You Clean Your Rabbit’s Cage?

Regardless of the daily cleaning, your rabbit’s enclosure should be deep-cleaned out every few days if your rabbit spends the night in his enclosure. If he’s only using it as a main station and is fully litter trained, you can get away with only deep-cleaning once or twice a week.

How Often to Clean a Litter Box? 

You should clean out the litter box in your rabbit’s enclosure or main station every day or at least every other day. You may be able to get away with every 2-3 days for other litter boxes that don’t get used as much, but it’s better to just keep everything clean by doing them at the same time.

How Often to Wash Food and Water Bowls?

I wash my rabbit’s water bowl out every other day because water dishes can get a slimy residue, which is a mix of bacteria and grain. In other words, rabbit backwash.

So, even if you don’t have a pesky (and overly thirsty) cat like me, it’s a good idea to wash out your rabbit’s water dish every couple of days to prevent that buildup. The same goes for your rabbit’s pellet dish.

What to Clean Your Rabbit’s Cage With

Rabbit cage cleaner

Really, you don’t need anything special to clean your rabbit cage. Most of the time, you can get away with cleaning your rabbit’s enclosure out with a broom, dustpan, and a good mop.

Best Rabbit Cage Cleaners 

A good cleaner for your rabbit’s enclosure will remove all the grime and stains from any pee, deodorizes, and is rabbit-safe. Be careful with heavy cleaners since they can be great for stain removal but aren’t so great for your rabbit.

However, don’t be fooled by the popularity of all-natural cleaners. Many of them can contain harmful ingredients for rabbits or scents that are offensive to a rabbit’s sensitive nose, like orange, lemon, tea tree oil, and eucalyptus).

Here are some safe and effective alternatives to clean your rabbit enclosure instead:

  • Vinegar-water solution: You can make a great cleaner with vinegar and water. It’s a simple 1:1 ratio that is great for neutralizing the ammonia in rabbit pee and easily removes stains and odors. Add baking soda for spots that need a little extra work.
  • Nature’s Miracle small animal cage cleaner: Another fan favorite, Nature’s Miracle is made especially for cleaning your rabbit’s cage and is totally safe. It’s formulated specially to neutralize and destroy all odors and stains. In my opinion, this one is best for spot cleaning since it can get quite expensive to regularly clean a whole enclosure.
  • Dish soap & water: You can use mild dish soap like Dawn for daily cleaning, small messes, and of course, cleaning his dishes and toys. However, it’s not the best for cleaning the litter box or flooring. It’s also not the best for fighting stains.
  • Another pet-safe all-purpose cleaner: You can get everything clean in one step if you can get your hands on an all-purpose cleaner that’s pet-safe, like Mr. Clean Pet Multi-Surface Cleaner. You can even use this for deep cleaning but make sure to rinse everything well.

In the event that you have to prevent the spread of a contagious disease from your sick rabbit to your healthy rabbit, you might need to use a disinfectant.

Tools You’ll Need to Clean Your Rabbit Cage

I get by with the usual cleaning tools, like a broom, vacuum, mop, and scrub brush for the litter boxes. However, that’s because my rabbit is litter trained and doesn’t have an enclosure, just a setup in the corner of the room.

(I also think it’s worth mentioning that I live on a farm, and we’re constantly tracking shavings and hay in here anyway, so I didn’t see the point in buying separate cleaning tools when I sweep and mop every day.)

If your rabbit has an enclosure that isn’t on a surface that you can just sweep and mop, here’s a list of what you’ll need to clean things up.

  • Scrub brush
  • Litter scoop
  • Disposable garbage bags
  • Spray bottle with rabbit-safe cleaner
  • Rags or paper towels
  • Broom and dustpan

This nifty little cage-cleaning set comes with everything you need.

How to Clean Your Rabbit’s Cage

rabbit cage cleaning

Now, there are two different types of rabbit enclosure cleaning. There’s the maintenance kind of cleaning, which you should do every day to keep your rabbit’s enclosure clean. But even when you do that, you still need to deep clean, which includes thoroughly washing everything.

Daily Cleaning

Daily cleaning consists of cleaning the litter box and spot-cleaning for any accidents or spills.

Here’s what you should be doing every day to clean your rabbit’s cage:

  • Remove uneaten food & refresh water: Get rid of all uneaten food, especially fruits or greens, that can rot on the floor or attract mold and bugs. That also includes removing hay and kibble and replacing them with new stuff.
  • Clean litter boxes: You may not need to do this daily, but if you’re a clean freak like me, clean out your litter boxes and fill them with new litter.
  • Clean the floors: Sweep any messes and spot-clean any accidents or spills. Mop if necessary.

Deep Cleaning

Deep cleaning is needed to refresh and sanitize everything. That means clearing everything out of your rabbit’s enclosure (including the litter box, the bed or blanket your rabbit sleeps on, his dishes, and toys), cleaning them, and then cleaning the enclosure itself.

Here’s a list of things you need to do for deep cleaning:

  • Washing toys: Wash plastic toys like you would dishes and toss the plushies and rabbit bed in the washer. If there are wooden toys, it’s best to leave them or just get rid of them and replace them. If you try to wash them, they just soak up all the chemicals and moisture, putting them at risk for mold and mildew.
  • Washing bedding/fabric flooring: For enclosures with sheets or towels as flooring, you’ll want to wash these every other day. Also, if your rabbit sleeps in a small bed or blanket, it’s good to wash it every week to get rid of the hair, dirt, and dander.
  • Wipe down enclosure bars: Wipe down the bars with soap and water to remove all the dirt, dust, and hair.
  • Clean the litter box: Clean out all the litter, give the litter pan or box a thorough scrub with a scrub brush and cleaner, and rinse thoroughly. Dry the litter box out and put in fresh litter.
  • Clean the floors: After removing everything from your rabbit’s enclosure or main station area, sweep the whole area. You’ll also want to vacuum, to get all the fine dirt, hair, and dust that the broom will have left behind. Lastly, mop the floor thoroughly, and scrub out any stains.

How to Keep Your Rabbit’s Cage Clean

If you’re looking for ways to spend less time cleaning your rabbit’s cage, look no further. Here are my top three tips for keeping your rabbit’s enclosure clean, other than daily cleaning, of course.

Litter Train Your Rabbit & Keep It Clean

The first and most obvious way to keep your rabbit enclosure clean is to ensure your rabbits are litter-trained on the off-chance that they’re not. I mean, if your rabbit isn’t already litter-trained, then his enclosure is honestly just a glorified litter box, and you’re probably spending way more time cleaning than you’d like.

Also, make sure your rabbit’s litter box is always clean. Rabbits are very clean animals. Even when they’re litter trained, they may go outside of the litter box because it’s too dirty.

Use a Hay Feeder

Shelly Fletcher Rabbit cage
Litter box setup with a hay feeder by Shelly Fletcher

Hay can make a huge mess if you just put it in a pile or even in a nice little basket (like I made the mistake of doing). Most of the time, rabbits will use a step-in feeder as another litter box, which wastes hay. And, if you put it in a pile on the floor, you’re in for a huge mess.

Here are some hay feeders to help keep things tidier:

You can also make a hay feeder yourself out of a tote bag. Simply cut 2 holes and attach the bag to the enclosure bars. A carboard box with a cut out hole can also make a handy hay feeder.

Use a Litter That Won’t Turn to Mush

Don’t use clumping litter made for cats or corn litter. Not only do both of these options get stuck to your rabbit’s feet and tracked everywhere your rabbit goes, but neither option is actually healthy for rabbits. Shavings can also get tracked everywhere and turn to mush if they get too wet.

Here are some better options:

In Conclusion 

Even when your rabbit doesn’t live in its enclosure full-time, it still needs to be regularly cleaned. Doing this prevents a variety of issues, including bugs and mold, and when left ignored, could be dangerous.

Daily cleaning is the best way to keep everything neat and tidy (and smelling good, too!). Even with daily cleaning, you need to deep-clean your rabbit enclosure every week, especially if you have more than one rabbit.

It may seem like a lot of work to clean up every day and then do a deep clean once a week, but it’s well worth it, so you have a clean home and a happy rabbit!

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