What to put at the bottom of an indoor cage

Nibbler has an indoor cage and ever since we've had him I've had dust extracted woodshavings on the bottom of his hutch as he wasn't litter trained. I've been slowly upgrading his home set up since discovering all the things that we originally were told to do for him might not be the best thing for a bunny. So he's now got a litter tray and is happily using it, but now I'm not sure what to put on the base of his cage. I replaced the woodshavings with newspaper as at first I put woodshavings back down so he'd have some sort of comfy bottom but I think it confused him and he just pushed his litter tray away to do his business under it.

The other day he ended up knocking his water everywhere and got the newspaper wet, I changed it all but I don't know if there was some residual wetness or if it just happens over time, but when I was on the floor with him yesterday and he hopped away I noticed the bottom of his feet looking a little grey. I'm now wondering what I should put at the bottom of his hutch as I obviously don't want Nibbler to have grey feet because of the newspaper. Do I have to put something down? It feels a little cold to just leave it bare plastic. I did think of straw but as the litter tray is new to him I didn't want to ruin his training in using it if he thinks he could go in the rest of the cage if it looks like his litter tray.. if you get my drift. Do you think I'm over thinking and should just get some straw in there and see what happens?

you could use something like vetbed or a fleece blanket if he will tolerate it. Or just a raffia weave type door mat cut to size. Or one of those sisal mats specially for buns. I don't think the newspaper ink will actually do him any harm though as it is non toxic these days.

My two have pet fleeces/blankets in their pen

I agree with Cheryl, Thumper ate loads of newspaper in her life time (despite my best efforts to stop her!) and she lived to almost 11

I agree with the others - Id pop fleeces in the bottom hunni x

We have newspaper as a base in all our indoor cages and hutches with a litter tray at one end with newspaper, megazorb and hay on top, and then lots more hay. We have tried fleeces and it's ok if they don't nibble or chew the fleeces a lot of ours do and we wouldn't like to go to bed and leave them on fleeces in case they chewed them during the night and it caused a blockage.

We do have fleeces in some of the play pens.

Joey has a mixture of his unwanted hay and megazorb in his facilities! The megazorb is used where he goes to the loo and the hay pads the rest out.

Thumper is free range in the house except for the computer room which has a baby gate. He hasn't figured out he could eaisly jump it. And he obeys 'no kitchen'. We still have his cage for him that contains his litter pan, hay rack, salt lick and a water bottle. He has a bowl too but outside the cage. He is also a free-fed pellets bunny and that bin is in the cage. He can sit on his loo and eat and drink. Outside is his water bowl, greens bowl and veggie bowl and now it is Summer we have a one of those water 'fountain' things.

The cage has a wire bottom. In the tray underneath is newspaper. In the loo we use Yesterday's News. We are trying to use some hay on top but he isn't too happy with that. Then half of the wire bottom is covered with a marble tile. We never leave him in the cage because it is far too small.

Thanks for all the advice everyone, I've seen him tearing up the newspaper and he does seem to like to chew his fleeces but that's when it's just his fleece to play with, not any base for him if you know what I mean. I want to get him to the stage of not having a hutch but having a play pen/NIC set up so he'll have a fleece bottom eventually, it's probably a good idea to see if he does chew on it!

My buns seem to like nothing on there floor, as long as they have 2 litter trays one in each corner, and a nice bed full of straw they seem really happy, I did use special wood shavings that were for snakes (no dust etc) as stopped using it on the snakes to messy and had a sack left, but charlie would widdle everywhere when this was in, I ran out and went without it for a few days and noticed he widdled in his trays only and seemed less grumpy, he likes to stretch out on the bare shelf, when i put stray or hay etc on it he kicks it off and makes a mess, the wee ones are same they seem more comfo rolling around on the bare flooring, rosies is wood on bottom and plastic tray on top level, smokeys is the bare play hut flooring, he has a feeding mat under his bowls and his bed is full but he doesnt pull it out n make a mess.