Successful Green Pea litter system for bunnies may be cats and other small animals

I gave up on the Green Pea system because it was difficult to clean thoroughly. But it was much worse when I went back to disposable litter. The pellets are gone from the pet store shelves. The remaining have some have sticky residues and made a mess with bunny's tail. I ended up on the top quality paper litter. It's expensive and still I have to change often to keep bunny dry and clean. Over $10 a week just isn't right.

From avoiding pollution during engine oil change, I got the idea of revolving cleanliness. Say you use the same used oil tray every time and you don't ever need to wash it clean with detergent. Say after cleaning some spills, the floor is cleaner than before and you don't normally go there, that's clean enough, until next time.

For my modified Green Pea system, you just need 3 trays that can stack close together, and some sort of screen as in screen doors. And the main ingredient is aquarium gravel. And you also need some duct tape.

The bottom tray is unmodified to hold liquid.

You drill a lot of small holes on the middle tray such that gravels rarely get through. These holes are to drain water after rinsing. The number isn't important but affects the speed of drainage. But the holes should be placed such that water do not pool on the corners, the sides or the middle. A little pooling also not important. Then you put 1 to 2 inch of aquarium gravel on this tray. They support the weight of the bunny and allow liquid to drain to the bottom.

For the top tray you cut off 1 to 2 inch off the bottom, a height approx equal to the thickness of the gravel. Replace the bottom with a screen. I use those for solar screen door. Tough, flexible and soft. I duct tape it to the outside of the tray. I tried to super glue it but not successful yet.

That's it. You need two to three sets for rotation.

For extra credit, if the stacked height is too high for baby or old bunnies, you can put off parts of the wall in all three layers to let them in and out easily. A shallow tray will do, one to two inches. But usually trays are deeper than that.

So, the bunny do it's business on top of the screen. It's weight is supported by the gravel. Any solid or pill will stay on top without going into the gravels making them difficult to clean. If some solid sticks to the screen, you can sprinkle some paper litter to keep clean. You can just lift the top tray off with the screen to empty it as often as you like. Liquid will go into the bottom of the gravel layer.

Bunnies like gravel. He likes to dig a shallow depression and rest in it. Pea gravel from hardware store will do but smaller ones should be more comfortable. I suggest white angular gravels from aquariums but not too fine. You can easily see how dirty the white gravels are. Angular ones stack as in paving well while round ones slip around the feet. Indeed he sleeps on the gravels a lot of times, more so with the soft clean screen on top.

To clean, solids are simply emptied from the top tray as often as you like. Each day you need to soak the screen tray on top of the bottom tray a bit. Then it's easy to rinse it clean of sticky solid with or without a moderate pressurized nozzle.

The gravels just need to be rinsed. You can pour out the top water and let the water drain from the bottom holes.

It's not easy to dry the gravels thoroughly. The sun dries fast but only the top that it sees. I tried to bake it in the oven. It would work but you need a big oven ware. The gravels also have to be relatively clean, free of pills, so that the smell reminds you of cooking rather than the bunny.

This setup is designed to dry the gravel in place. With or without the sun, the gravels at the top will dry fast. So three sets of gravels are enough for a rotation. After enough drying, you just put the gravel tray onto the bottom tray and put back to use. The gravels may not be completely dry, but the top layer is dry, drier and cleaner than the last batch that the bunny did his business the day before. In comparison, if the gravels are not completely dry in the oven, you will feel the wetness when you pour them around into the litter tray.

In my last version, my two problems are that too much water with dirt goes into the outdoor laundry sink. If I use it to irrigate, the pills are fly magnets.

This time I just use a small patch of gravel pit outdoors to clean and drain. Since the pills are separated and the gravels have relatively little dirt in it, I just pour the dirty water down the pit for irrigation. The gravels will help to trap the tiny dirt down there better than bare soil. Everybody and the plants are happy. The liquid waste I pour as far away from plants as possible. And with a lot of water to dilute, I hope the plants are OK with it.

The running cost is the very few gravels that are lost everyday, and water. The water consumption I would say is about a flush of the toilet. I think I can use a lot less water if I try. It's revolvingly clean as long as the gravels don't smell. The top gravels will be relatively clean.

For cats, you can't have the screen layer. The gravel lost will be greater when you scoop out the solids, but you can use cheaper hardware store gravels.

Small creatures like to live in the gravels. So you may want to dry the gravels high up on some stands. There are plenty ways to clean the gravels thoroughly once a while. Many germs die at 60 C for a minute or so. (please check). So pouring boiling water on the gravels and soak them until the water cools will do nicely to kill a lot of things. Bugs will do poorly than germs. You can also use chemicals like hydrogen peroxide, salt, baking soda, vinegar. Bartender's friend is a rather strong acid but organic. Just don't eat it or let it absorb into your skin too much.

Even if the duct tape isn't secure, they don't come off that easily during cleaning, and the whole setup is rather neat when stacked on top of each other. Let me know if you have ideas to get rid of the duct tapes.