Good luck with the bun you hope to adopt! Honestly, the best thing to stop a rabbit from spraying is most likely getting him fixed. Fixed rabbits maintain much better litter habits, and also show fewer aggressive and territorial behaviors. Because money and cost is a concern, I understand why that wouldn’t work out. Your friend could try to place a wall covering of some sort? Maybe she could hang a tarp along the walls.

As Louie said, the best thing to do would be to get him neutered. Not only to help with the spraying, but to calm him down as well, he sounds pretty hormonal and probably feels a lot of sexual frustration which is stressful and unhealthy for him. He might not be perfect after the neuter since he’s older, or he might be fine, but in any case it should cut down on the spraying considerably. Does she not want to neuter because of finances or is there another reason?

Bunnies can be neutered fairly old. 6 is definitely not too old as long as he is healthy otherwise and the vet is experienced. I would really encourage your friend to try to save up and get him neutered. It is very sad for a bunny to be confined just because he has poor litter box habits. Many male bunnies get surrendered at shelters for exactly this reason.

From what you describe it sounds like this rabbit is in a bad situation (grass hay should be 80% of the diet and available 24/7), and rabbits need room to run daily.

She could set up a pen with puppy pee pads on the ground, and hang some washable blankets on the walls. But really the pen should be the home base, but with a larger area to run for at least a few hours a day.

I’m not sure about Canada, but where I live, neuters at the vet are 200-500 dollars at the high end, but some shelters actually offer great deals, my local shelters has a spay+neuter clinic that only charges $90, so that’s a good option to look for around your friend’s area. Painting sheets might work, but anything made of plastic is pretty unsafe if the rabbit is a chewer.

6 years is not too old for surgery. Provided the rabbit is healthy and you have an experienced vet, the risk isn’t higher than with a younger rabbit. Especially considering that a neuter is much less invasive than a spay for example. Costs can vary greatly depending on location, I paid less than $100 for my guy’s neuter, and that was at a high end exocitc vet clinic. Many vets will offer a payment plan, maybe that would be an option?

For the spraying issue, they make dog blankets that are supposed to be pee proof, you could get something like that to line the bottom of the x-pen. I have seen pet pens with clear barriers, can’t link here, but if you search on amazon for resin pet yard fence you should see some examples (the one called EXPAWLORER Pet Playpen for Puppy – Plastic Indoor Yard Fence Durable and Large Space for Small Animals with 12 pcs Transparent Panels looked pretty big and not a bad price). The rabbit shouldn’t really be able to chew those easily (may need to find a way to block the bottom edge) and looks like you can just wipe down to clean.

Hope the neutering works out! Maybe call the rabbit rescue and ask them if they could recommend anyone? They may be in touch with vets who are willing to do a sliding scale or payment plans. At least worth a try.

Also maybe the spraying can be reduced by giving him more roaming time and toys and such. He may be spraying out of frustration as well as hormones.

That’s really nice of you that you are working to help her and improve the rabbit’s situation. 🙂

For finding vets, it helps to search for “exotics” vets. Many vets don’t explicitly mention rabbits, but are advertised as small or exotic animal vets. It is usually much easier to find a vet that does neuters than to do spays. Reaching out to rescues is a great idea. They might also have suggestions for cheaper sources of hay locally. Not sure if she has storage space, but buying hay from places that sell for horses is usually much much cheaper than buying it as it’s sold for small animals.

I do agree that rescues probably know of a good vet nearby, it’s probably inconvenient for rescues to travel far to take care of sick rabbits or rabbits that need surgery. It’s definitely worth a quick call. The HRS also has a list of rabbit-saavy vets from different states.

You might have already seen these, but here are two useful BB threads to help with finding a vet:

https://binkybunny.com/forums/topic/how-to-find-a-vet-for-rabbits/

https://binkybunny.com/forums/topic/rabbit-savvy-vets-us-based-and-world-lists/

You can find compressed bales at feed stores. They don’t take up too much room, I keep mine in a plastic storage box.

I know I’m a little late and I don’t think you’re supposed to comment on older posts? Idk but this is on the front page of this forum. I have an idea of putting a plastic shower curtain or tarp on the inside of each side of the cage, tucking in the bottom to stick out of the outside of the bottom of the x-pen. So the walls are all plastic and no pee should be able to escape. You could also do this on the bottom and make sure the edges are all tucked under the bottom of the x pen sticking outside. Put memory foam mats or something squishy underneath so it’s not too hard and slippery. Make sure there’s no wrinkles in the bottom that the bunny can grab to chew on. You could even put something heavy on the outside of each corner to hold it in place. As the others said, it depends if he’s a chewer. The other idea I have is making him his own walls in the x pen or a diy cage that are washable. I hope this helps.

@Bu20055 I’m thinking a safe untreated wood for the walls.  Then linoleum flooring to put on the walls? Depends on if he chews that but then you can wipe it off. If you have any ideas of things you could stick to it to make it waterproof that would be good. For flooring, you could use a plastic tarp/shower curtain with foam mats or memory foam mats, with a blanket on top so he has something soft in the meantime before he’s neutered. I don’t have experience with diy pens but you could help your friend do some research on the best materials. Then come up with the best safe plan to water/spray proof it. I’m testing stuff out for my buns when I pick them up in a few days. Since I think they need some help with their litter box habits. Right now I’ve got plastic shower curtains on top of memory foam bath mats from the dollar store (so they have something squishy on their feet). They’re absorbent but I haven’t seen a bun pee on it yet so I’ll see how it works. There’s also cage liners which are meant to soak up pee (more expensive tho). I don’t know if they’ll chew the plastic shower curtains, cause I haven’t met them yet. Someone told me I could also tape down the corners of the shower curtains outside of the pen to keep it flat, so I’ll be trying that out soon. Hope you can take something from this! Maybe someone else here can offer better diy ideas lol.

(I meant wipe off any spray)

@Bu20055 Yeah, that could work as long as it is really waterproof. I don’t have experience with those covers but yeah. Fleece on top is nice. I think you would just need something to put on the walls to make it waterproof so the wood doesn’t get wet. I wouldn’t normally suggest just making just a wood box because the bunny can’t see out of it. I guess you could probably use plexi glass or something similar with a wood frame instead. Just still need to make sure the wood isn’t going to soak up the spray. And that the bunny gets air, probably should not have a top and just make it tall enough he can’t jump out. Or clip some mesh/fabric tule to the top as a “ceiling”. And drill holes near the top of the wall where spraying can’t reach?