Well I actually have many questions about this set-up. What kind of cage do you have?  Wood is a very hard surface to clean and could definitely cause bacteria to grow if not cleaned well. In fact, I do not know if you can thoroughly disinfect wood so I am sure your bun is smelling the other one. Another concern is the wire. Wire is extremely bad for bun’s feet as they can get sore hocks. Most cages are too small for a rabbit so I would strongly encourage you to get an xpen.  It does not sound like you have a litter box per se in this cage.  That is the first thing I would get.  I would not put hay in the “bedroom” because you are basically encouraging your bun to pee and poop in this area.  They love to eat their hay and pee and poop as they eat  so I would have a hay rack in front of a litter box so you can accomplish this.  I would absolutely not put anything else in the cage such a bedding because that is probably what is confusing your bun. Please check the links under Bunny Info above for ideas on all these things. You will need to start litter training your bun and the advice under Bunny Info is very informative. I have a cage but attached to that I have an xpen which actually I just recently starting taking away as my rabbit just doesn’t need to be confined at all anymore.  Under the xpen I have a piece of linoleum and a beach towel for sleeping on, toys and a second litter box.  I certainly hope that you will be allowing your bunny exercise time outside of the cage and an xpen is a good start to that. Welcome to this site!

I would get rid of the wood floor too. I know a lot of people use X pens but be careful. My Roo was OK in it for about 2-3 weeks and then she discovered that she can’t jump over the pen and has been doing so ever since. Thank God I was home when she learned this. I was upstairs and heard something behind me and she was sitting there watching me. My other bun, Baxter, doesn’t jump over the pen but likes to push on it so watch how you have the ends together.

And get her spayed if you can … it will assist with litter training her.

OK now I understand the situation.  I have to say that this is not a good set-up for your bunny.  The hutch is way too small and it concerns me that this is an outside bunny.  I understand you cannot bring the bunny inside but quite honestly, and I don’t mean to offend you, I think perhaps it would be better for you to find an inside home for her.  Being tucked away in the backyard or barn is just not suitable. It does sound like you care a lot about the bunny but it sounds like she gets very little running time and very little socialization.  Rabbits thrive around a social situation, that being living inside with a family.

Maybe a towel but maybe a piece of linoleum on top which would help with cleaning.  The wood is never going to be clean as liquid seeps through no matter what.

We are all in different situations here with housing our bunnies, regardless if we have our bunnies inside our homes or our furry friends are outside … most of us are lucky enough to have them inside, however, this does not apply to all of us for one reason or another so each case needs addressing separately according to the situation.  We are here to assist bunny owners, not judge them on how they house their bunny, but all advice can be offered in an appropriate manner.

This lass here is seeking advice on preventing her bunny from peeing in a certain area of the hutch …  

Can I offer my advice as I have owned a bunny which was housed outside in a wooden hutch … yes, I totally agree with cleaning up of a wooden hutch is extremely difficult and as knowltons has indicated the urine smell is constantly there no matter what solutions are used for cleaning.  I cleaned my hutch out every day with vinegar and lemon juice (fresh lemons are best to use).  Some bunnies do not like the smell of lemon juice so this may also be a deterrent for bunny to not use that area as well.  Then I would sprinkle bi-carbonate soda on the bottom of the wooden areas.  The bi-carb would soak up a lot of the urine and keeps the urine smell at bay (I also sprinkle bi-carb on the bottom of my oven to soak up spills etc.).

I would line the wooden areas with plenty of newspaper, paying particular attention to the corner areas (that’s where bunny will tend to back up and pee).

This way the cleaning up is much easier … a matter of scooping up the paper and bunging in the bin …

However, some bunnies just prefer a certain area to pee full stop. 

Maybe some others here can offers some other solutions.

It is very normal for bunnies to pee and poop in the same place that their hay is in, in fact, I always recommend that people put hay in the bunny’s litterbox because that actually encourages bunnies to pee and poop in the litterbox, so what you are actually doing by putting hay in the wood area is encouraging your bunny to pee and poop there.

It sounds like you are actually pretty lucky because it sounds like your rabbit is actually very well litter trained, she just doesn’t understand where you want her to go. What I would recommend is covering the entire floor of the hutch with linoleum, cardboard, or another hard surface. The wire bottom will give her sore hocks (bleeding and cracked heels from standing on wire), and damage her feet, so the first step is to give her a solid surface. Next, purchase a square plastic litterbox, you can get cheap ones that are made for cats at Wal Mart or Target for about $4. Then, put litter or newspaper in the bottom of the litterbox and place hay on top of that. Then place the litterbox anywhere in the cage. Since she is showing an excellent tendency to litter train well, she will probably use the litterbox once you put her hay in there. Don’t put hay anywhere else, unless you purchase a hay rack (which is a good idea) and hang it about the litterbox. Then you just have to dump out the litter box every 3 days about, and add hay every day, and that should keep the wood clean. You should probably cover the wood with linoleum too because if it is pee soaked it will give her urine scald on her feet (causing her to lose fur and have sore feet).

All my bunnies actually live on carpet which is a good possibility for your bun once you get her a litterbox, you can get inexpensive carpet squares and put those over the linoleum so she doesn’t slide all around.

Hi

I wasn’t sure from your previous post if the hutch from Petsmart is the bigger one, or smaller one you referred to, but..

I have that exact hutch for my Lizzy.  When I first set it up, I put her litter box in the “living area” side, figuring that she would want to hide in the “bedroom” side.  Which she did, unfortunately she liked to hide AND pee AND poop in the bedroom side.  Is there a reason why you can’t have the litterbox on that side?  I don’t have a problem with cleaning off that wooden bottom because she uses the litter box.  Also, I line the wooden floor with newspaper or paper grocery bags so it’s easier to clean off, in case of accident.

Because the wire bottom in the other half was hard on Lizzy’s feet, I also cut a piece of wood and put it in that section, too, as MooBunnay suggests.

If you get them litter box trained, cleaning off the wood isn’t much of an issue.  You may have to compromise with your bunny about where the litter box is placed, however.

Good luck to you!

Here’s my setup, if it’s at all helpful.

Yay! Congrats on litter box training, Agonyaw! So glad it’s going well!

Easiest is to move the box into the corner where she’s peeing Give that a ‘go’ and let us know!

I think that one problem is that you are looking at her cage from a “human” point of view.  Bunnies do not recognize the need or use of a “bedroom”- and I am not sure you can convince her otherwise.  It is impossible to get the previous bunny smells and her current bunny smells out of the wood- wood absorbs odors when it absorbs the urine.

Are you trying to litter train her? stop the peeing on the wood?  to get her to only use a litterbox in the “open” (not enclosed) part of the cage?

It sounds as though she is either prefering the enclosed area as that is more comfortable for her and previous bunny smells- or is she spends alot of time in the “open” part of the cage she may have designated the enclosed part as suitable for her litterbox due to wanting to spend most of her time as far away from her toilet and to remark what the other rabbit did.

I would recommend since you have another cage that she can be housed in for awhile- to remove the wood flooring- cut it out and replace it.  Since this isn’t something that you will want to do often- replace a built in wood floor- you can replace it with very sturdy wire (not thin stuff the urine can eat away at).  And then placed ON the wire you can put in a floor that you can remove to clean if needed.  So by having a sturdy wire floor in the enclosed part- you are able to have a piece of wood cut to size that fits into the enclosure.  So her feet are protected and it is not IMPOSSIBLE to clean.  Instead of wood- you could buy Coroplast (as commonly used in homemade bunny condos)- it is easy to cut to size and is cleanable- plastic surface that wipes right up. 

Will she use a litter box in the enclosed area?  That might protect it from further pee- but not from previous accidents. 

And I honestly would not worry about poops wherever they are- they are easy to clean and a much preferable way of marking her territory (than peeing).

The main problem with rabbit cages is that they are often poorly designed by someone at the pet supply Manufacturer that is just designing a product that will sell well.  Housing the rabbit well is usually the last of their concerns.

I don’t have much experience with outdoor bunnies- as most others here don’t either.   They fact that she is constantly penned as opposed to the exercise house bunnies get makes it hard to give advice on why an outdoor bunny persists in doing a particular behavior.

A rabbits territory has a lot to do with their bathroom habits.  And spaying also affects their bathroom habits and marking territory behavior.  Maybe one of the members here has experience with unspayed females…..

Yes, a bunny is a bunny indoors or out- it is their behavior that can differ with a different environment and health limitations.  In an earlier post you stated that your bunny can NOT exercise out of its cage unless she is on a leash due to your dogs.  Honestly at this point I don’t even get what your situation is like and what you really expect this bunny to do.  Because you also stated that she used the smaller cage appropriately and you also stated that she has free run of a dairy barn daily and gets tons of exercise.

Maybe someone else feels like trying to figure out what your bunnies situation is…….  But the fact that you do not acknowledge that environment and other factors can affect a bunnies behavior makes me unable to offer advice.

Good Luck.

try putting hay in the litter box, and she will sit in there and eat. she has to FIRST learn to use the litterbox. spaying will probably help. and also, hay is sometimes used used for litter boxes, so it is a bunnies instinct to use for a litter spot. i think for bedding u should use somthing more along the line of old blankes or somthing for her bed.

Normal
0

<wunctuationKerning />

false
false
false
<woNotPromoteQF />
EN-US
X-NONE
X-NONE

<wontGrowAutofit />

<wontVertAlignCellWithSp />
<wontBreakConstrainedForcedTables />
<wontVertAlignInTxbx />

MicrosoftInternetExplorer4

/* Style Definitions */
table.MsoNormalTable
{mso-style-name:”Table Normal”;
mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0;
mso-tstyle-colband-size:0;
mso-style-noshow:yes;
mso-style-priority:99;
mso-style-qformat:yes;
mso-style-parent:””;
mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt;
mso-para-margin-top:24.0pt;
mso-para-margin-right:0in;
mso-para-margin-bottom:0in;
mso-para-margin-left:0in;
mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt;
text-align:center;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:11.0pt;
font-family:”Calibri”,”sans-serif”;
mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-fareast-font-family:”Times New Roman”;
mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast;
mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri;
mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;}

okay, peoples/bunaholics – deep breath.  We’re all in the same boat in wanting what’s best.  It can be especially difficult in a forum format to have even slight disagreements as they can quickly get out of hand because of complete misunderstandings.  So please be sure to not let this disintegrate and stay on a respectful level. 

I think the suggestions that have been given are great – eliminating the wood flooring, putting in new easy to clean floors that don’t hold smell so much, hay in the litterbox, etc. 

I’m sorry that you are having to deal with such a frustrating habit.  Even bunnies who are spayed/neutered that feel secure in their territories and also have plenty of running space, will pee on things that we don’t want them too sometimes (I have had to even give Jack refresher courses).  But when what makes your situation even more difficult is she is doing this in her own habitat, that can be much harder to deal with because it’s not like you can spot her doing this and train her not to.

You can try a few tricks:

1.  Use part of the urine soaked paper towel, that you used to wipe up her pee, and put that it in her litterbox.  Don’t use cleaning chemicals with that. 

2.  This sounds very territorial and so it might be just a case of  – she will do this until she feels more confident that she has left enough “territorial messages” (urine)  Now normally, we try to clean up and get the scent out as much as possible to remind them where they need to go, but for now, maybe what you should do is clean up with water only.  This way it cleans up the urine, and gets rid of offending smells to us, but it may leave behind enough scent residue to satisfy her, hence her going back to her previous behavior.

3. I know that spaying can help most bunnies with their urgency, persistence and stubbornness.   You may not have had to deal with her hormones so much until she dealt the scent of the male.(even though he’s not there) This may have awakened/heightened her hormones and I don’t know how long of an affect this may have on her or if it will return back to normal.  Check out Vermont Rabbit Resources http://www.petfinder.com/shelters/VT14.html  as they may be able to guide to you to a vet. 

Keep us updated.

i will just point out that pregnancy and behavior are not the only reasons for spaying. females have an 85% risk of developing reproductive cancers by the age of 3 if not spayed. treatment/surgery for cancer is much more expensive than spaying.