Hi everyone,
I have a conundrum and I’m looking to brainstorm for a creative solution.
Summary: Nona pees outside the box and may or may not respond well to having a super-low edge box, but Piper pees over any edge that doesn’t have a substantial lip.
Meet Nona: Has good days and bad days where she can’t move around super efficiently. Had left fecals around for months before mobility problems started, which was fine, but has now additionally taken to leaving cecals and occasionally peeing outside the box and/or on herself (her kidneys are fine and pee is clear). FYI the reason Nona wasn’t going in the box was NOT because she was in pain – she poops when she is asleep, but always heads for the litter box if she’s awake (except the three pee incidents have been while she was awake). She’s too mobile to park on an absorbent mat and too feisty for a diaper. Has been given a low-rim box but she still hops into the high-rim box that she’s used to. I want a solution that doesn’t exacerbate her (possible) arthritis.
Meet Piper: Is used to a litter box with a higher lip but as soon as I added a low-rim box she went to that instead (even though it’s not in her usual corner). She likes to pee over the edge of the low-rimmed boxes… every time.
So, in trying to help you visualize what they have: for the past several years my buns’ litter box has been a plastic storage drawer (~5 inches tall, ~18×10) with a cooling rack grate (~3 inches tall inside the box) and wood stove pellets. My rabbits have bigger poops than fit through the grates on the store-bought corner litter boxes and they tended to pee over the edge. The cooling rack ensures their poops fall through and the height of the plastic drawer has a tall enough lip (~2 inches higher than grate) that they don’t pee over the edge. Have recently added a screen over the rack – it catches the cecals Nona leaves so that it’s easier to feed them to her.
I’ve thought about cutting one edge off for Nona but it would still be higher (~3 inches tall if cut at the same height as the grate) than the low-rim box I gave her (~2.5 inches tall), plus Piper would probably pee over the edge as soon as I removed the lip. The low-rimmed box I’ve referenced is just one of those large, triangular boxes from the pet store with a grate.
I have seen a link around here to a gardening pan that is square, high back, minimal lip on the front, but I need something Piper won’t pee over the edge AND I need a setup that separates them from the actual litter (Nona sometimes sleeps in the box and Piper will eat anything).
Complicated! Maybe there is a simple solution that hasn’t occurred to me. Thoughts?