Litter Training Advice Needed

[QuietRising]

Hello all! I recently took in an 11month old male holland lop. He is a wonderful little guy, very sweet, but we are having some issues with litter training. He is my first personal bunny, but I am familiar with rabbit care as I worked for a vet who handled a lot of exotics, including rabbits.

He always urinates in his litter box without fail, but I am having some issue getting him to pellet in his box as well. Currently his set up is a large rabbit cage with an XLarge dog exercise play pen wrapped around it so he came go in and out of his cage as he pleases (which he does. I never force him back into the cage, he puts himself to bed at night and I just shut the door overnight to keep him out of trouble while I’m asleep). I put fresh hay in his litterbox and in a hay rack in his cage twice a day. The first few days I had him I allowed him free roam of my living room and kitchen and within a few days he started pelleting all over the house. The first few days he did not. I called the vet I used to work for and he suggested that I may have overwhelmed him by giving him too much freedom causing him to forget about his box, and told me to wrap the pen around his cage so he had a smaller space. He does not pellet all in one spot or I would just get another box and put it there. He will pellet EVERYWHERE all around the play pen. 

Any suggestions on what I can do to help teach him where to go? I already give him all of his food in his cage to encourage him to go back to his cage where his litterbox is. I’d eventually like to give the little guy free roam again, he is such a total sweety and really enjoys laying at our feet while we relax in the house, I hate to keep him confined to his pen.

*Also another note. The people who owned him before me had him on wire mesh. I laid a soft blanket on the bottom of the cage and removed the grating from his litter box. He refused to get in the litterbox without the mesh though and urinated on the floor just that once. As soon as I placed the mesh back over the litter box he began to use it again and we haven’t had an issue since. 

 

[Sarita]

Hi, I am going to move this to Behavior for you.

[Sarita]

Your vet gave some very good advice. Is he neutered? Are there other pets in the house?

[QuietRising]

Thank you! He is not neutered yet, I plan on having him neutered in a few months (I am in school full time and I’m waiting for my spring break so that I can be home with him the week after he is neutered). There are no other pets in the house either.

[Tessie]

It’s possible that you won’t get much farther with his litter training until he’s neutered.
But I agree with Sarita, I think your vet gave good advice.

[QuietRising]

Ah darn. I kind of figured as much but thought I’d ask some other owners for opinions as well. What do people normally put on the ground for them, just an old blanket? I have him on carpet right now (Yay cheap apartment flooring) and while of course it doesn’t stick to the carpet I hate having to pull the vacuum out every 20 minutes. I don’t want to put him in my kitchen where the laminate is because be likes to tear around his pen at mach speed and I can just see him slipping around on the laminate.

[Author]

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