I have recently taken in a pair of bonded male-female unneutered bunnies. They were living in awful conditions before I got them (no litter box, fed constantly on pellets, no tlc, severely matted fur, emaciated). I’m currently fixing them and they have all seem to get better. They are now living indoor in a puppy pen (appx. 120x120cm large) with two litter boxes. I regularly clean their boxes daily or sometimes every 12hrs depends on how much I splurge them with noms.
The problem lies on the unneutered male rabbit. He is appx 6-7mths old. Around a week to 4 weeks in our household he has been having excellent hygiene and litter box behaviour. Some accidents outside the pee box happens only when it is very soiled. How ever the last 2 weeks I have been seeing lots of pee around the pen. Some near his litter box, near his hay station, near his hidey house, EVERYWHERE. I tolerated the first week and merely thought that his litter box was too dirty etc etc (so I cleaned the box more regularly), but yesterday i found 4 different pee puddles still wet around the cage. Im afraid that the male has encourage poor toilet habbit to the female one.
I’m out of wit. I have done the best possible alternative to this (uhuh including the food + toilet thing) and he still choose to pees everywhere. I had their litter boxes wired so that their hocks wont touch their pee (i cover the wire with silicone anti skid) thinking he’d feel cleaner. As for the litter box bedding i chose just regular newspaper changed daily. I can’t lavishly spend their hay for toilet bedding as it’s EXTREMELY expensive where I live. I noticed that there are less accidents when I use hay as their toilet bedding.
Here’s a stupid theory I figured from my distress. My rabbits gets a time to romp around the laundry area for at least 2 hours daily. Sometimes we chill in my room too. At those floor time they are excellent rabbits! Not a single poo or pee! When I put them back into their pen they’d use the toilet properly. So, I’m thinking that the bunnies thinks that their pen is their huge litter box where they pee and poo freely whereas their floor time locations are their romp area which they have to keep clean. At this moment I wish I’m doctor do little…. Mind you this is my first bunny and I have been googling the heck out of rabbit care for two months.
My post may seem incoherent and annoying but please help.
Pss I have tried to attach a hay rack to prevent less hay waste and it’s still not working out.
Oh the male’s name is Babinsky and female’s Ponten. They are supposedly angoras but i think they are mix breed.