JSM – What type of wood shavings are you using? Aspen, pine, cedar or…? Some flooring options are coroplast (corrugated plastic), linoleum, I use pressboard with peel & stick linoleum tiles on it and you can also use cardboard. It sounds like you have some plastic matting already, do you have any left over for the flooring in the cage?

Your thinking is totally correct; Basically you only want bedding or litter in the litter box; You can provide a towel or pet bed for them to lay on if you like but they generally like stretching out on cool plastic cage floors. If you built your own cage, you can use lino, tiles or coroplast as the floor too.

That could definitely be contributing to the problem.  I use fleece in my bunnies cages and runs.  I think that makes it easier for them to determine litterbox from rest of cage.  Is your bunny spayed or neutered?

I use litter (woodstove pellets) in my bunnies litterbox, and their run floor has plastic protecting the carpet- so I lay a fleece blanket over that- and place the litterbox on top of the blanket to help hold the blanket in place.  I also have a dog crate set up as a cage while I am bonding the bunnies- so I cover the cage tray with fleece and the second level that I added has fleece also.  I have had good luck with fleece since any nibbles just tends to create little holes.  Towels seem to get really ragged looking with long strings, etc and just do not work as well with my bunnies.

I used fleece even when I was littertraining first bunny before her spay and she seemed to get there was a real difference.  Now that I am bonding I do get some occasional wee spots- but I just throw the blankets in the wash.  They are pretty much bunny blankets only now- but that is OK.

I have cotton rag rugs that are about 2 1/2 x 3 feet (Target, $3) that are really easy to throw in the wash.
I also have fleece in their favorite hang out places. You can get fleece – in loads of colors and designs at fabric stores, like Joann, for very cheap.
Like Katnip Crzy said – “Towels seem to get really ragged looking with long strings’ which bunny’s can choke on.

i’ll ditto the others. many buns, esp. during the training stages can’t distinguish between litter and bedding… it’s all litter to them. what kind of cage do you have? is it a plastic bottom cage or a wire-bottom cage?

like Scarlet Rose touched on, pine and cedar wood shavings are not safe for bunnies due to the phenols emitted during the processing. the carefresh you use in the litterbox is good tho, so keep using that…

Lately with the holidays- plain fleece blankets have been on sale cheap- I picked up some from Wal-greens for about $3 each- which was cheaper than I could buy fleece by the yard.  I now have plenty of rabbit blankies so that rabbit laundry is not urgent if the stuff in their cage needs to be washed.  Plus, I figure they will eventually destroy a blanket enough and I will throw it away.  Though I do have to admit, the first 2 fleece blankets that I started using about March 2007 as still in use and no where near being trash.

I have a cotton rug on the floor of mine. Easy to clean but I’d like to get a few more since we’re making a bigger space for him and it’s good to have extras when I have to wash them.

What’s a cotton rag rug? I’ve never seen a rug at Target for $3, where should I be looking?

Here is a photo that shows one of the rag rugs.

There are 100% cotton and traditionally made from rags or old clothing. Bigger ones are often in ovals.

The ones I got at Target were on an “end cap” near the bedding / towels. If you look they often have some kind of rug that is about 2 x 3 feet for really cheap.

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^that is the best picture ever Sage Cat!

what a cute picture. I have a rug JUST like that. only I got it from the DOLLAR store!! I had to chop off the ends of it because it had fringe, and my bun just couldn’t resist it.