Validation of the Green Pee litter system for rabbits (and cats)

The modified Breeze litter system

The homemade Green Pee litter system is designed for cats, with ideas from the commercially available Breeze system.

The Breeze is one of those products that give away good, tested ideas when people can make it for next to nothing.  And if you promote it too much, it will affect the profitability of your other products.

First, the Green Pee is two stacked trays.  The top one has holes in it to drain liquid waste, and pea sized gravel for cats to cover their solid waste.  The bottom tray collects liquid waste and allow you to put in anything you fancy to deal with the odour and ultimate disposal.  You scoop away cats' solid waste on top, and sacrifice some gravel to go with it.  You have to maintain the level of gravel with new additions and the old ones are supposed to be rinsed and dried from time to time.

The Breeze that inspired Green Pea is the same thing.  The top tray has a plastic grid on most of the bottom for drainage.  The grid maintain the strength of a fairly large tray, some 20" by 12" (check spec).  The bottom tray is securely snapped onto the top, but has a drawer like tray in the middle that can be pulled out.  The tray just fit a custom sized pad with probably very absorbent gel.  The drawer is very shallow but will allow the gel in pad to expand a lot and hold a lot of liquid waste.  Instead of gravel, Breeze has it's own pellets that is perhaps made from soft rock with a waxy coating.

I got the Breeze just because I wanted to use disposable pellets that I liked - feline pine.  The slots will work better than drilling holes.  And that the feline pine's own double tray system, very similar to both, is only available online with expensive shipping.  The Green Pee is better, and cheaper.

The other reason I got the Breeze is because I was obsessed with adapting to rabbit use, getting rid of the pills / pellets / pebbles in a convenient way.  Unlike cat waste, the pills are the same diameter as typical pellets, so you can't scoop or filter them out to reuse the pellets.

It turns out that for rabbit use, the best adaption is nothing.  When you rinse the gravels, the pills will float while rocks sink.  You just pour away the pills and flush it, or pour the pills into a sieve / colander to get rid of the water, then dump the pills in trash.

Some people put a semi-rigid screen on top of the gravels to prevent the pills from mixing with the gravels.  You scoop away the pills from time to time.  That doesn't save much work because you need to wash the screen at least daily for the semi-solid waste.  And you need to wash the gravels anyway.

My particular problem is that the screen on top of gravels is too comfortable.  My rabbit occupied it as his bed and pee on his normal sleeping area.  Without the screen, he still likes to sleep on the gravels and pee on the corners of the tray.

I see no advantage of the Breeze pellets to gravels.  The regular cylindrical shape of the Breeze pellets may drain better, and the coating may reject water and therefore odour.  But I don't see any problem of using pure rock instead.  You can use finer gravels for you rabbit if you worry about their feet without pads.  There are very smooth and exotic aquarium gravels, but for a few dollars I get a huge bag from gardening store and filter out the larger than 1/4" stones with a discarded potting tray with a grid bottom.

As for what to put in the bottom tray, newspaper and baking soda is excellent I'm sure.  If you can get the huge baking soda box in the laundry department (non-food grade from the same manufacturer), it's much cheaper than from the baking department.

My problem is, I don't have any newspaper.  But even though the Breeze has a tiny tray, you can still put a lot of other stuff in it that will last you about a day or two.  If you only want to empty every week, you just need to put the Breeze on another tray and get rid of the drawer.  You can put crumbing cat litter and scoop away the crumbed solids.  But they are not that environmental friendly.  You can put anything absorbent down there and let nature equalize the liquid distribution.  You can put biodegradable gel for camping but that would be expansive.  I put in feline pine because I have some left.  There are similar much cheaper pellets but not in my town.  The pet store do have some pellets from recycled paper that are cheaper.  In general compacted pellets are more absorbent than other loose materials.

To convert a Breeze into a Green Pee, I put a screen on the grid, under gravels.  Some of the gravels are too fine and fall through the grid.  So far I keep the drawer system because it's a piece of cake to empty every day.  People use plastic canvas from sowing / craft stores for the screen that you can cut to size.  I use bug screens or those for windows and doors.  I use the thicker ones that seems to be weaved from nylon threads and coated with plastic.

The reason I gave up on pine pellets is that you have to keep paying for the consumable.  You can't separate the good pellets from the pills.  You need to keep adding fresh pellets so the degenerated dust will not stick to his feet and being carried around.  (This is minor.)  The Breeze drawer is too shallow for the pine pellets.  And you have to use a scoop to "encourage" the wet dust to go through the grid and down to the drawer.  The dust should fall through by itself but fresh pellets and wet dust can accumulate to a thick layer and it gets harder for the dust to fall through.  Feline Pine's own system may be better but I don't see how the problems are totally eliminated.

The only problem is drying the gravels.  You need two or three sets to rotate.  And you need a yard but can be done without one.  Pouring away the pills, soaking the gravels overnight will allow any dirt to rinse away the next day.  If you have space, spread the gravel into a single layer and sun dry.  If they are completely dry, you are not creating an environment to accumulate germs.  Germs cannot survive without water.  If you feel the need to disinfect anyway, household beach is effective when you soak the gravels.  But it is not environment friendly and can be harmful.  Germs that survive on animals adapt to neutral pH or 7.  You can kill germs with extreme acid or alkaline.  Vinegar can kill many germs.  If you buy citric acid crystals you can get more acidic solutions.  Washing soda should do too but vinegar is safe because you can eat it.  Baking soda is a weak alkaline so it cannot be effective.  You cannot mix acid and alkaline because you will neutralize them and become useless.  Alcohol and hydrogen peroxide are effective but because of the cost, they are only limited to small surface areas.  For Vinegar or Washing soda, you need to consider the concentration level.  If you can, check with cheap pH papers to get less than 4 or more than 9 for sufficient concentration.  But since washing soda is so cheap, I would think it is easy to be alkaline enough.