Heart breaking and disaster litter training..Need HELP!

[Tokii]

I recently joined this forum. I  adopted this adorable bunny(more like rescued). I have no clue about its breed and age. I got him on 11th Dec 2014(2 weeks today). I have gone through a lot of litter training ideas/advises/tricks posts from this forum and few other sites. I did try to follow the protocols. But to no avail I keep failing. I have quite the story to explain.

Here’s how things are. First off, i kept him inside a little bird cage(i only had that when I got Toki) until I could make a proper house, its door always open (unless i have to go to my office) and i provided him a little play area surrounding his cage self made playpen made out of card boxes. Now i heard if bunnies is about to relieve themselves some would either lifts it tails or some would just sit in a certain way..but here’s how things happen for me, he would come out of it and play,binky and go nuts! but never seen him preparing to relieve himself. So I keep waiting for a sign so that i could lift him and put him to the litter asap! every time i keep failing, just when i softly nudge him back to cage, it takes a matter of few seconds he would sit down with his butt resting and relieving himself. So in the positive side now i know what he does before doing his poo poo and pee pee. hehe 

Then came the next difficulty. Finally when I got him a new house, but with no door in it, it only has a roof of the part where Toki goes to sleep and the rest of the house is roofless so that i could pick him up. i only keep him in the house when i have to go to office and sleep. Otherwise i let him roam around and go nuts freely within his play area(i even made a two floor house with holes out of card board boxes ) so that i could gradually familiarize him to the whole litter processing and the whole place, at the mean time giving me the time to thoroughly bunny proof my apartment. Then every time i put him inside the house before going to office, i find him out of the house roaming around in my apartment which I still haven’t bunny proof or clean all the hazardous things like mothballs under the sofa and TV cable wires and stuffs. I was mortified!so I put him back to his place and took a pieces of card board parts and maximize the height of his house for the time being so that I could clean away everything and bunny proof the place..but gradually i keep finding him out of his house and also out of his play pen area. Finally accepting my defeat I let him loose whole to my apartment (WHICH , DON’T YOU WORRY I’VE COMPLETELY CLEANED), hence the difficulty in litter training. I keep a keen eye on him when i do. He doesn’t show sign of relieving himself only until i put him back to his house. O.O i even kept a litter box with some of his dropping into the litter. Still nothing.

Here is the heart breaking part, when one in a million chance when I DO see him about to relieving himself I try to pick him up but he run away and I know he is scared. When i do catch him, his chest would beat so fast it saddens me, and then I keep him in the litter box he stays so still and mellow it breaks my heart, it wont relieve. I even tried to pat him to calm him. He does calm down but still he wont poo, So feeling depressed by the thought of its being scared of my chase I put him back to his house and guess what, after recovering whatever he just went through, he starts to pee and poo. and act normal afterwards. Please note that even though he only relieves inside his house, there were few accidents happened outside of his house.

Desperate need of litter training advises on this.

[LBJ10]

I read your post and the first question that comes to mind is how big is his play area? Can you get a puppy exercise pen to make a play area he cannot escape from? The reason I’m bringing this up is because he probably has way too much freedom. Some bunnies need to be confined to a small area during litter training before they can be trusted to roam a larger area.

I would not try to catch him to put him in the litter box. It sounds like it scares him and you want the litter box to be a positive thing. What type of litter are you using? I assume it’s just inside the box and no where else? If he pees outside of his box, then promptly clean it up with a paper towel. Put the pee soaked paper towel in the litter box so he can see that that is where his pee should go. Pick up any stray poops and put them in the box as well. Make sure to clean the spot where an accident was to remove any smell. Otherwise, he might think that is somewhere he can go.

Do you know how old he is? Is he for sure a he? Some bunnies are terrible with their litter habits until they are spayed/neutered. You’ll want to look into that anyway, but keep in mind that you may not see real progress until then.

Since he’s a new bunny, you should consider taking him to a vet so you can get established with one. And so you can make sure there isn’t some underlying health issue contributing to the problem.

[theshrew24]

Is his litter box big enough, and are you cleaning it often enough? My bun Albus refuses to wedge himself into a box that is too small, and Wally needs fresh, clean bedding to step into it. Some rabbits are more picky about the conditions of their box than others. Also, something that really helped me when releasing my rabbits into a large area (living room, kitchen, etc.) was getting mulitple litter boxes. I now have two individual litterboxes and one large one to set around the house. They more litter boxes, the less mess you should have.

This is assuming your rabbit is already litter box trained and is just missing.

Also, I know this has nothing to do with potty training, but I recently got a 6-shelves set of organizer cubes from Walmart that I have built into a nice-sized pen. You can reinforce the cubes with cable ties and make a little door. I love my new rabbit pen! It is roomy, easy for me to get to my buns, and they can come in and out on their own. I currently have a pen that is 56″ long, 28″ wide, and 28″ tall. They cannot jump out of this enclosure, but if your bun is a jumper, you can always make it 28″ x 42″ and make a roof with the extra grids.

Good luck!

[Tokii]

Sorry for late reply and thank you for your respond 

To LBJ10: It is a very small one. As i have said in my welcome topic(https://binkybunny.com/FORUM/tabid/54/aft/136166/Default.aspx) he looks small. At first i wasn’t sure of his gender but later i figure out a way to check it through some researches. It sure is a ‘HE”. And yes I am not sure of his age. I am troubled with that thought. I can tell you one thing though, he never drinks water. He only drinks milk and never saw him sick or anything. Just a lot of Binkying and shaking his head. I have posted a picture in my welcome topic. (Please do have a look at my baby if you have time, he adorable ) 

And like I said in my welcome post,it is quite hard to find a Vet here. There are times when a Vet from another country do visit after every two or three months but it was on 2010. I am not even sure there are Vets here a lot of us here when in desperate need of help either contact an online Vet and posting picture of the situation and proceed, which is not an easy thing to do but better than nothing. But I am still try so hard to find one here. And there comes the answer to the next solution, spayed/neutered is currently not an option if I cant find a Vet. Like your advice i have already started doing that from day one. i pick the poop and put it back but i never put the tissue back to the litter.Maybe I should start doing that too. At first the house i build ed for him there would be organic wood shavings scattered inside the floor just in case of accident but later i got rid of it and put a nice piece of carpet and put the litter box inside the house. I will stop picking him up like you said i want litter box to be a positive thing. So i will try to softly nudging his way  o the litter box 

To theshrew24: Yes compared to this lovely tiny Toki of mine the litter box is big enough. (Please do check his picture from my welcome post )Maybe i should get multiple litter boxes too and see how it turns out to be.  I love your  organizer cubes idea, i will think about redoing it that way. Thank you for the idea. And yes you wont belive, he is very jumpy. i think i underestimated his size for his jumping. LOL

[JackRabbit]

Why is he drinking milk?

[Tokii]

I donno, I was trying to give him water but he refuses to drink then one of my family friend suggested to pour some milk. Toki started drinking as soon I did so. I kept both water and milk for him but he never drink the water. I time to time try to make him drink water but he refuses then what i do is wet my forefinger and let him lick. I cant say I am not worried.

[JackRabbit]

Unless your bunny is a baby (too young to be weaned from its mother) then it should not be drinking any milk. Plus, bunnies should never drink cow’s milk.

http://www.medirabbit.com/EN/GI_diseases/Food/yogurt.htm

[JackRabbit]

Take a look at the Healthy Diet and other sections under Bunny Info through the menu button at the top of this page. There’s alot of helpful information there.

[Tokii]

Posted By JackRabbit on 12/27/2014 11:27 PM

Unless your bunny is a baby (too young to be weaned from its mother) then it should not be drinking any milk. Plus, bunnies should never drink cow’s milk.

http://www.medirabbit.com/EN/GI_diseases/Food/yogurt.htm

I have been feeding it full cream milk and so far nothing had happened. And I did research before doing so and like you said some says its not good while others did and said no harm was done, they grown out to be healthy. So what should I do?Should I stop feeding him milk even when he doesn’t drink water at all? If I do that doesn’t it stops the only way he consume some liquid? Or i wonder if hes still drinking milk only because hes still too young?

[LBJ10]

He looks tiny in the picture. Do you know how much he weighs?
Once they are weaned, milk really isn’t good for rabbits. They cannot digest it.

How are you offering the water to him? Bowl? Bottle?

[Tokii]

Posted By LBJ10 on 12/28/2014 12:16 AM

He looks tiny in the picture. Do you know how much he weighs?
Once they are weaned, milk really isn’t good for rabbits. They cannot digest it.

How are you offering the water to him? Bowl? Bottle?

No I do not know how much he weighs. I did put him on non digital weight scale. The line barely moved. >.<"   I tried offering him water through with both bowl and bottle. So do you think i should stop giving him milk?If so any idea how to make him take liquids?

[Roberta]

You can buy animal specific milk replacement formulas in pet stores. It would be better to switch to one of those if he is going to have milk and it would be better for him. You can progressively add water until it becomes more and more dilute over time which should help him transition. You want milk replacement for small mammals. Failing that you would be better using goats milk as cows milk will eventually make him very sick.
As to age, are you sure he is a boy ? If his testicles are apparent then you know he is over 10 weeks old.

[Stickerbunny]

Question, you say he’s not drinking water at all. How long did you leave it though before deciding he wasn’t drinking? Did you mark the bowl / bottle so you would see if any came out over night?

I ask because my buns tend to not drink much during the day. They mostly drink their water at night/early morning. And if they eat a lot of greens, they don’t drink much at all. I almost never SEE them drinking. Between my two, they drink anywhere from 1/3 to 1/2 of a normal cereal bowl of water a day, mostly from the hours of 9pm-11am. But, that’s a 8lb and 6lb bunny together. So, if you didn’t mark the bowl and leave it for a bit, you might not even notice your bun drinking from his water bowl.

Rabbits shouldn’t have dairy, because they don’t have the enzyme that is required to digest cow milk. It can cause serious health issues if given long-term.

If the bun truly isn’t drinking water, after marking the bowl/bottle and monitoring it closely, then a safer way to entice would be to add a little fruit juice (pure fruit juice) to the water. Or, dilute the small animal formula, as Roberta suggests.

[Roberta]

My Nomnoms isn’t a big water drinker either she will however demolish a big salad and have occasional sips from a bowl of water, most of the time I wouldn’t know she had drunk unless I saw her do it.

[Roberta]

This online company ships to the Maldives and carries a milk replacement formula I use.
http://www.thevetshed.com.au/?rf=kw&kw=divetelac

[Tokii]

Hey all thank you for your replies, sorry I couldn’t reply earlier its because I didn’t come to office and currently the only way for me to get internet is there but today I will be sure enough to put some internet data package to my phone 

@Roberta: Thank you Roberta! I will try doing that! immediately.But first I will trying going through pets store in search of formula if no good, then I will order it.

@Stickerbunny: I wait whole day keeping an eye on him and when its 11:00pm i couldn’t wait any longer and pour some milk before I went to sleep. I got worried over him being dehydrated and stuffs like what if something bad happend to him overnight. (I know, I know, I sound paranoid ) And I do marked the bowl and there are measures already on the bottle so I know.

[TNC]

.

[Tokii]

Wow I love the idea. Thank you for sharing. And you’r little Kuri sounds funny, rebellious in a funny cute sought of way.  I can already imagine it just leaning on the wall wearing a fedora tossing a coin  and dramatically the whole scene would be in black and white hehe love your little Kuri

And BTW its Toki not Loki 

[JackRabbit]

I’m wondering if there’s something about the taste of your tap water that he doesn’t like. Do you have access to filtered water or bottled water you could try?

[Stickerbunny]

Posted By JackRabbit on 12/29/2014 10:08 PM

I’m wondering if there’s something about the taste of your tap water that he doesn’t like. Do you have access to filtered water or bottled water you could try?

That’s a good point. Some tap water can have very strong chemical tastes to those with sensitive taste buds, so I imagine buns can have that too. 

[Tokii]

Posted By JackRabbit on 12/29/2014 10:08 PM

I’m wondering if there’s something about the taste of your tap water that he doesn’t like. Do you have access to filtered water or bottled water you could try?

I never tried to give him tap water. Only mineral water. 

[Tokii]

Hey all, I just wanted to update you about Toki, Sorry I forgot to do so earlier. Toki chose a corner to poop and pee so I put the litter there and he never pooped and peed anywhere else  I am so glad the litter problem is over.

And as for drinking milk carton problem. What I started to do is pour milk and then water. Gradually I lessen the milk and pour more water skimming the milk.So far it has done the trick and Toki keep drinking without complain or a fuss. Honestly its more water than milk, the only thing different is it has a faint white colour. I have multiple times thought of pouring some food colour to see if Toki falls for it. hehe

Anyways thank you all for helping me with this. 

There’s one more problem though, should I be opening a new thread for that or should I just write it down here?

[JackRabbit]

You’d probably get more response on a new thread.

[Author]

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