Are the poops onion-y? And a little shiny? Those are territorial poops. Both boys and girls can make them.

Think about it from a baby viewpoint; it’s much more convenient to go to the bathroom where you are than trek to your cage. Like, you’re out exploring, no time for a bathroom trip!

In addition to the innate want to mark territory for safety reasons, marking is common, though understandably frustrated.

As mentioned before, your vet will probably be able to tell sex by the shape of the pee-pee. I don’t suggest looking on your own because it involves angling your rabbit and pressing there to get it to prop up above fur, so tricky business for a less tolerant rabbit. Either way, it’s very clear you’ll love your rabbit.

Continue to commit and execute on the consistent cleaning. From experience, I know it may be tempting to opt out or elongate windows of time between, but be strong and keep at it. Rain will be much happier! I recommend gloves and a face mask, and you can cover the gloves with latex disposable gloves so you don’t ruin a pair of gloves via accidental contact with pee pee or poo. I also recommend bringing all your supplies in a compact container so you can plop them all down, so everything, and swiftly leave. Does Rain seem cold in the conditions? I know you’ve mentioned making it warmer for him/her.

While your health is important, remember that if it’s unbearable for you to go outside, imagine what it’s like for rain, in addition to their cage being dirtier than usual. In the future, looking ahead at the weather to see if you should clean extra the day before, or finding a window of time that’s warmest, will help. This level of responsibility and initiative is very good!

In terms of convincing your dad about the importance of spaying/neutering, for females, it’s a question of cancer. Cancer rates in unspayed females is very high, and onset can be silent, sudden, and very invasive/risky/expensive to operate when detected. Not to mention the suffering the rabbit endures during development. Female domestic rabbits are prone to cancer, to an extraordinary proportion compared to humans. This needs to be accounted for.

Technically for males, neutering isn’t 100% necessary. It’s urgency is pressed when a male rabbit becomes ravaged with hormones, including sexual frustration, destructive behaviors, and lots of spraying and marking. Not all unfixed males display these behaviors, but the majority do, and neutering will help alleviate the frustration felt as a result of nature.

You can also simply frame it as, rabbits are recently domesticated animals. Unlike dogs and cats, who’ve spend literally centuries being bred and domesticated, rabbits have not, thus, the need to do something “unnatural” is sometimes very necessary in order to accommodate them as domestic pets.

My boys were neutered at 3.5 months, but I think girls they usually wait until 5-6 months.

You cannot use the cold weather as an excuse not to clean her litter box. Wrap up warm and just do it. Your rabbit shouldn’t have to put up with a filthy litter box.

If your rabbit is pooping outside the box because the box is filthy, you cannot really do anything to stop her other than, you guessed it – clean her litter box.

Females absolutely 100% need to be spayed. It isn’t negotiable. If Rain turns out to be male, neutering isn’t completely necessary but keep in mind if you plan to bond him in the future, he’ll need neutering.

If Rain is indoors, why are you having to go outside to clean her litter box anyway? I change mine daily and I just empty it into rubbish bin, wipe down with a paper towel and vinegar if necessary, and refill.

Easy solution: Just clean the litter box indoors?

I think that others assume you are using litter boxes.

Do you just have litter filling the bottom of a cage? That’s what it sounds like to me! Must be a pain to clean that. I use two extra large cat litter pans for my bun. I change the litter every 2-3 days but usually more like 2 days because if Ophelia decides it is getting too dirty for her she starts to leave a poop or two right outside the tray. It’s actually really funny, kinda like her way of requesting that I change it lol. I live in an apartment and I don’t like to have any litter sitting around in a trash bin, so I always just dump the boxes out into a trash bag, clean the box and replace litter and then walk the bag to the garbage.

The litter box size is most likely causing the pee puddle. Wick is a Netherland dwarf runt and definitely outgrew the triangle box early on. With a bigger box, there’s less chance of peeing over an edge.

The darker shinier poos are the territorial poos.

If you can convince your parents to buy literally just one bottle of *apple cider vinegar with the mother* (not plain apple cider vinegar), it will last you a while and adding a splash into Rains water supply, and that will reduce/eliminate urine smell. The bottle should have stuff at the bottom, and you shake it before pouring it in the water so some of that floaty stuff can get in there. The floaty stuff helps regulate pH levels, which is good for rabbits. It does smell very strongly, but diluted in water it will be more tamed/not noticeable…, but either way it’s better than urine smell. I think regular apple cider vinegar may have the same odor eliminating effects, but not the bacterial benefits. Wick gets the acv with the mother since I’ve had him. He enjoys it.

Your dad is caring to be concerned, and a few decades ago, it is definitely more justified because rabbit surgeries and procedures were less frequently done and were not as polished as they are now. If you find a good rabbit vet, the procedure will go smoothly. Spays require much more monitoring the days following the operation, while neuters are typically more straightforward be in recovery. Either way though, there are numerous cases of rabbits in the hands of experienced fixing rabbit professionals that get the snips and recovery swimmingly.

To get your dad more involved and more comforted with the decision, you can provide him with some questions, including:

1) Does the professional recommend fixing and why? Typically the best vets will recommend it and be knowledgeable in the reasons
2) How often does this professional perform spays/neuters?
3) What are their observations about recovery from their patients? (If a vet says it’s too risky or too painful, they’re not s good vet to go to for the procedure. An experienced and confident vet will state it’s a standard procedure).
4) Is the facility equipped with rabbit-safe anesthetics and medications for post-op care?

Once again, I commend you for your hard work, dedication, and commitment to improving Rains quality of life. It can be difficult to navigate situations and arrangements, but you’re doing well. Keep at it and stay engaged in the process!

Okay, definitely upgrade the litter box. You could use an underbed storage box or a large cat litter box with high enough sides so that she can’t pee over it. A larger box might cut down on smell too as faeces and urine don’t have to build up so much in one spot. That might make life a bit easier for you. You definitely don’t need to clean daily, that’s just what I do so I can monitor poops (Buttercup has history of stasis) If I use vinegar, I just soak a paper towel and wipe. I don’t rinse it after although because I clean out daily there’s not really an issue with staining. Maybe you could put a puppy pee pad underneath the paper based litter? That way you won’t have as many problems with staining, you can just lift up the litter by the puppy pad, dump it, give it a quick wipe and refill. It would mean buying puppy pads tho.

Oh, I guess I was confused why the cage needed to be hosed down if she uses a litter tray.

I would tidy up Ophelia’s cage when she had one, but it really didn’t need much cleaning since she only used the litter box in it and slept in it at first.

For my part, I maintain a large blue Petmate litterbox, about 15″ wide x 18″ long x 5″ high, inside Panda and Fernando’s condo that’s refreshed with litter (currently Carefresh, though I’m seriously thinking about switching to stove wood pellets when the current package runs out) and hay layers every 2 to 3 days, and cleaned every weekend. The buns are generally pretty good about pooping inside the box, but I do always have to clean up a couple of dozen stray poops left scattered on the lower deck, generally near their food dishes, and occasionally a few poops on the sisal rug of their X-pen enclosure. Unlike some other rabbits, Panda and Fernando don’t generally spend a lot of time lounging in the litterbox though I did notice Fernando doing so the other evening.