Night time poop wars

[ohbonobogirl]

Bandit and Minnie have known each other for a month now.  Bandit’s been around for a year and is an ideal little guy, with few bad habits apart from having an overdeveloped radar for anything resembling rubber, his favorite snack.  Minnie is a bit of a digger, but really isn’t too bad about it.  They’re both goofy as all get out and seem to be a great pair.  They were really easy to introduce to each other and have been living together full time for about three weeks. Things are great…except for the poop.  It’s only at night and only if people aren’t around. Never during the day or evening when people aren’t around and never when someone sleeps on the couch.  Based on the size, Minnie seems to be the primary culprit but Bandit’s not completely innocent.  They have free range of the living room, which was completely cleaned and rearranged upon their bonding.  The poop seems to happen only near one litter box, with one spot of the rug closest occasionally getting peed on, too. It’s definitely more than scattered droppings from enthusiastic hops out of the box.  I’ve bought stock in vinegar and have been scouring the floor each morning.  Please give me hope that this may end soon!  

[tanlover14]

I can’t give hope that it will end soon – mainly because one of the members took months and months for her buns to stop doing this.

BUT in most situations it does end the more bonded they become. Have you tried switching their area up a bit? Maybe moving things around a bit and seeing if they continue to do it with the “new set-up”. I typically give my bonded buns a few days to poo all over like they want to but it typically calms down a few days after that when I put them in a new area. If they are having a poop war over one certain spot though switching things up may help “neutralize” the spot and have them see it as a different area that what it was before – I do this when I’m bonding and add in another rabbit and it tends to confuse them enough that they don’t start claiming it as THEIR own specific spot.

[quirkygirlx]

Ohh my two lops are doing the same thing.. I have a 1 yr old neutered male and just brought in another neutered male on Friday.. They are REALLY good together and share the litter box but I wake up to poop all over every morning… it is lessening each morning, but boy is it frustrating for an OCD girl like me! Ha good luck, I feel your pain.. it’s driving me a bit crazy.

[ohbonobogirl]

The poop wars have subsided a bit. We’re not getting floors covered, though there are usually between 10 and 20 pellets in the morning floating around the room. I can live with it, I guess. We’ve switched all kinds of things up, and it’s still happening, so I think we’ll just learn to live with it.

[MoveDiagonally]

Glad things improved.

[ohbonobogirl]

My lovely pair is going in the crate anyways, for doing this while I was at work for a couple of hours today….

So the poop wars will be confined to the crate if they do happen again.

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