Grunting and shoving

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BINKYBUNNY FORUMS

This topic has 4sd replies, 4 voices, and was last updated 9 years, 9 months ago by Dee.

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- 06/11/2016 at 8:13 AM
  Brittany
  Participant
  20 posts
  My holland lop, Lola, is about 8 weeks old. I started working on potty training as soon as I figured out the corner she had picked. I have a corner litter in it with different litter than what’s in her cage as bedding.
  
  First off, she uses her litter as a bed and is very protective over it.
  I have a pooper scooper, just a plastic spoon, and when I go in her cage to scoop up poops and put it in her litter, she gets very angry. She’ll come up to the spoon, grunt and shove it away. Then she will go sit on her litter box so I can’t put anymore in there.
  
  I know she’s young, I’m just wondering what I can do to help make her realize that it is her litter box. When I clean her cage I’ll always put some soiled bedding back in her clean litter so she can smell it. But she doesn’t care.
  
  Also when she’s sitting on her litter throne, sometimes I’ll put my hand in the cage and she will grunt and shove me away.
  
  I’m scared she’s mad at me, but after a minute I’ll leave her, and then she’ll come up to me for some snuggles.
  
  Any suggestions with making her realize her litter is for poops and not resting? Or anything to help with the aggressiveness over the litter.
- 06/11/2016 at 9:13 AM
  tobyluv
  Participant
  3312 posts
  Some rabbits are very cage protective and they do not like hands/arms coming into their territory. Even though you are using a different litter than what you are using for bedding, it can be confusing to a rabbit if there is any sort of litter type bedding on the floor of their cage. That just looks like a giant bathroom to them. If she isn’t a chewer, you could put a rug or fleece blanket in the bottom of the cage and only have litter in the litter box.
  
  Can you take her out of the cage when you are cleaning it? Then you wouldn’t have to deal with her aggression/protectiveness.
  
  It can be difficult to fully litter box train a rabbit who isn’t spayed or neutered, so you might not have complete success with that until after she has been spayed.
- 06/15/2016 at 7:11 PM
  Brittany
  Participant
  20 posts
  Thank you! I found it best just to take her out while scooping up her poops.
  
  I’m going to try putting fleece or a carpet cutout in her cage instead. The breeder we got her from (my bfs mom got her for me as a surprise so she talked to the breeder) had told us just to make sure it’s different so she knows.
  I tried putting her hay upright by her litter box and it seems to help.
  
  How do you keep the cage clean with using fleece/carpet?
- 06/22/2016 at 7:28 AM
  Deleted User
  Participant
  22064 posts
  I have fleece in my buns cage and a pop up silicone washing bowl as a litter tray
  
  They like to lie on the hard floor of the cage so I only have the fleece partly covering the bottom.
  
  They have only ever wee’d on the fleece when they have been at a bunny-sitters and the litter tray wasn’t cleaned out as much as they would like
- 06/22/2016 at 10:54 AM
  Dee
  Participant
  704 posts
  Her litter throne lol- I love it ?! It’s good that she is pooping in her litter box, and lots of bunnies love to sleep in their potties. As long as she isn’t getting marinated in pee, I wouldn’t worry about that. It’s nice to give her alternative beds, but if she chooses her litter box as her favorite place to catch z’s, so be it ☺. She’s so young, she’s likely to change many habits and routines with time.
  
  As others said, your girl is probably protective of her space. My female lop was too- she would be furious when I had to change her box. Lots of thumping, grunting, snorting and nipping- her best trick was to sneak up behind me while I was busy cleaning and give me a nice sharp nip on the butt ?. Then when I had emptied and cleaned the box, before I could add bedding, she would hop in and do a nice big pee and some stinky territorial poops in the clean potty ?. Lovely. I learned to put her in a different area when I changed her litter box. Your bunny may improve when she is spayed, but that might just be her personality. You were already given good ideas on coping, but it sounds like pretty normal bunny stuff to me ?. Enjoy- good thing they’re so cute!
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