Also, barn about the UTI. She does not dribble or anything. It’s not that she is not able to control her pee she just doesn’t want to go in the litter box suddenly. I am sure it’s because I modified it so much. I am afraid of her having a UTI because honestly I can not leave my home to take her to the vet in my condition. It’s one of the things that tonight made me think I should just give her up to the rabbit rescue. I really do not want to do this. One month ago this was the furthest thing from my mind then suddenly this just started becoming a problem.

RabbitLover – as for litter box with a lid, do you have any example you can point me to? Today I bought online a litter box that’s grated, and has high walls (but a short place she can jump in to). I’m hoping this helps with the pee. I think tonight I discovered that the issue might be her nails. I will just have to manage a few weeks before any of this stuff gets to me.

About me not having any more litter for her, luckily the litter pan is grated so I don’t know. I guess it’s just going to sit there and make my house smell. I don’t know what else to do.

Sorry for any late reply showing up if it seems like I’m ignoring either of your posts, I think my posts are in a moderation queue so they might be delayed. Thanks for understanding.

I will call the vet tomorrow and ask her for advice and mention the UTI possibility.

Thanks guys for going easy on me and the kind reviews. I will be honest with you, as of today I have entirely run out of litter, so I don’t even know what I will do at this point.Yes it’s been a really stressful day. I realized today that her nails are really long, maybe it’s paining her to stand on the grate. I had to make her litter pan grated about a year ago, because otherwise no matter what litter I tried, she would sit in it and I eventually had to get her bum shaved. The grate was WONDERFUL because she no longer had that problem (i felt bad for her…). But now her nails are long and I bet it’s hurting her.

I’ll be honest I am unable to leave my home. So I can not take her to the vet now, nor can I take her to get her nails trimmed. I feel I have no option but to do the trim myself. I am going to be so careful, it would break me to hurt her. I am coming to the point where I wonder if it’s better for her to give her away which makes me sad to even think about. I am trying so hard to find a solution.

Thank you for mentioning the hay cubes. Do you have any you recommend? I used to give those to her all the time; she loves them. Are they a suitable alternative to hay? If so, I will certainly give them to her. Part of me always worried it was unhealthy or should be given like a treat.

My asthma has only become problematic in the past year so I don’t even know what all kinds of hay I’m having problems with. That’s one of the things that makes this difficult I am so afraid to even give her a strand of hay now for fear of an asthma attack. Yes this is a very stressful situation but I am trying to hard to find a solution. Thank you kindly for your help.

i’m so grateful you guys have mentioned compressed hay. she absolutely loves them. will look in to it pronto. are they healthy for bunnies to eat daily? if any particular product you guys recommend or like yourself id be happy to hear about it.

also about the paper, i have so much stupid junk mail ads i need to get rid of. maybe i have the opportunity now. i know this sounds disgusting, but is there any harm in just letting the pee go to the bottom of the litter pan and cleaning it out at the end of the day? will it harm her? it is grated and she has no way to touch that far down. just in case i end up in a situation without it.

Mention of the compressed hay in here gives me more hope than I had before. you don’t know how bad i’ve felt keeping hay from her. i keep trying to give it to her and i just have an asthma attack just barely handling it. it got to the point where i just had to stop entirely. she loves hay so much and could just eat it all day long. it has been hard on her. thank you guys. i’m going to order another bundle from chewy today. i am getting a few things:

• compressed hay (i found Kaytee Natural Timothy Blend Cubes Small Animal Treats . i realize it has alfalfa hay in it, but for this price i can buy her a lot. and words of caution? i read alfalfa shouldn’t be what an adult bunny has especially if it’s being used in conjunction with pellets. but not sure how much would be ok)
• small animal nail clippers . I read that Safari Professional Nail Trimmer for Dogs are good for rabbits
• Miracle Care Kwik-Stop Styptic Powder in case her nail bleeds
• Some random treats 🙂 like Oxbow Simple Rewards Oven Baked with Apple & Banana Small Animal Treats

i have been wanting to get her some treats. i thought of giving her one per day. i hope it’s ok. they looked fairly healthy but i’m not sure.

i will be researching greatly how to trim her nails to ensure i do it correctly. i hate the thought of doing it myself and wouldn’t if it weren’t for this situation. there’s lots of good videos i found for it.

(Edited by Wick to replace links with product names in italics)

thanks wick for the advice. i hadn’t thought about that tbh. i haven’t tried it. but i feel like the problem is whenever she gets hay she takes it all over and there’s particles everywhere so i have doubts if it would work in this case. i can try it with a mask. but if i can use cubes, i honestly might opt for that, at least until my asthma is under control again. i will try a new medication soon and hoping it will help.

i do feel like orchard grass (i think that’s what it is at least. it’s like a long grass, grass only no hay.) didn’t give me problems. she has a little left but i’ve kind of been saving on to it. i might pull it out soon.

Hey, you are spot on with the pee pads. Yesterday, I ordered a case of about 150 of them, along with some reusable ones that can be washed. have you ever used this method before – does it work well, and if so, any tips?  I have no clue if it will work, but i am desperate to solve this problem. At the very least i must have something that sits beneath her pan because even if she actually goes up on the pan, she hangs herself completely off the edge so nothing at all gets in the pan. i don’t think she realizes she’s doing it. she absolutely never did this before its simply bizarre to me. on this pan, the grate is literally sitting right on top of the pan so it’s easy to do. on the one i bought yesterday, the edges are slightly elevated around the grate so i think it will help too.

sadly, growing grass is not an option for me right now. but it’s a great idea and will keep it in mind, as i never would have thought about it.

there are rescues around here and they definitely have nail trims available. unfortunately i am unable to leave my home currently. that is the reason for a lot of this trouble. i would never want to cut her nails myself. but i am beginning to worry that it is hurting her on the grated pan as it’s a metal grate. i bought a new grated pan yesterday and the grating is plastic, it looks more comfortable, so maybe this will be better for her. yesterday i put her on the pan and she got so angry, starting pulling at the grate. she only did that the very first day i put it on. so it is what made me think, oh no, maybe it’s her nails. maybe it’s the grate she doesn’t like. they are so long now 🙁  i was planning to call the rabbit rescue today just to see if they had advice for me on other things to buy before i place this order. the responses here have been so helpful and i really appreciate them.

i actually think you are right about the grate. i don’t know why it didn’t dawn on me until last night (after i made this ranting post), that it might be the grate itself. i called the vet today and she’s going to give me a phone call so i can ask her some questions and see if she has advice. i really hope i can get things sorted for my little rabbit friend

@LouieTheBunny – thank you for mentioning. I saw some from oxbow with carrot flavors 🙂 I prefer to buy them whenever i can they always seem so much more healthy. i looked at the kaytees because they’re on sale, it’s so much cheaper than the oxbows, but i think i might get some of the oxbow ones too

@DanaNM – thank you, i didn’t realize you meant like that. that’s interesting and actually i plan to call them today. also the idea of the pee pad without the grate. i was going to order some carefresh in my order – but not the regular kind, the cheaper one (Carefresh Shavings Plus Small Animal Bedding) i do believe this has a mixture of different things and is made from wood rather than the paper like the more expensive one (Carefresh Small Animal Bedding, Natural). i was going to get it because she was on a grate. i wonder if it would be safe if she’s on it directly. if i am just sprinkling a little on though i might get the more expensive one as it’s only about $5 more i think. she used to use the paper one ALL the time and i loved it because it was so soft, but she’d sit on it and got herself needing a shave. after this, i switched to kiln dried horse stall pellets (these: Tractor Supply Pine Pellet Stall Bedding, 40 lb) beneath the grate, because it’s so much cheaper – like $40/month compared to $2/month or so. but i am actually starting to wonder if its the dust from those that’s making my asthma so bad. i’m going to see how things after a few days once it’s all run out.

(Edited by Wick; links replaced with product name in italics)

I just wanted to give an update, I was able to speak on the phone with her vet. It was a very helpful conversation. SHe was really concerned about my rabbit, as she doesn’t have hay right now, and is only relying on pellets. She also recommended calling the local rabbit rescue and looking in to potentially fostering her if the situation continues like this. She was very kind as always, but somehow the conversation made me see another perspective, of how selfish i have been acting towards my rabbit. even this initial post, only me complaining about my own problems,or the time she was taking from me, when i realize now my rabbit was here starving. no wonder she has been having bad behavior… she wasn’t even getting her basic necessities. i am ordering the hay cubes which she will get unlimited of, in the meantime the vet recommended me on how to uptake her pellets. i gave her a whole bunch and she ate until she was full and she is looking on top of the world. i am going to do what i can for her and do what i can to improve her life here so it’s back to normal. i really love her. and i want to apologize for how selfish my post was. i got caught up in my own frustrations and wasn’t thinking about her. thank you guys for your kind advice to me. p.s. this post isn’t meant to sound sad or ‘woe is me’, nor did the vet make me feel bad. i guess i just understood as a result of that conversation, and knowing the facts. i also got my asthma medication increased so maybe it will help me be able to tolerate her hay.

hey guys, thank you, never would have guessed that about the elevated space. i will certainly try this approach and will watch the video too, thank you.  i have bookmarked it now.

I want to provide an update here, in case it’s ever useful for anyone else in a situation like this. maybe it’ll provide perspective to someone or give them hope instead of giving up on their rabbit. sorry it’s long i was trying to be thorough… hope it’s useful.

things have greatly improved over the past 24 hours. it turns out, this was all completely my fault and not my rabbit being stubborn 🙁

i want to thank all of you who responded to my thread. this helped tremendously. one thing it did, is it prompted me to call her vet, worried about a possible UTI. during this discussion, i discovered i was drastically underfeeding her; i was still giving her the diet amount of pellets the vet had put her on, even after stopping her hay 5 weeks ago because of my asthma. in my ignorance, i did not realize hay was a source of calories and filling for them… i knew it was nutritious and supposed to be the majority of their diet but somehow i didn’t think it helped manage their weight. (kind of like how lettuce has so few calories for people, you could eat so much and wouldn’t really make you gain anything..) when i stopped giving her hay, i thought her pellets were supposed to stay the same, and i was very wrong. 🙁  she was losing a lot of weight (i wasn’t concerned at the time, because weight loss was expected as the vet had put her on a diet anyway)

i believe now she was pretty much starving for the past 5 weeks 🙁  not only was she angry and behaving poorly, but she was drinking a ton of water. i noticed this recently and didn’t understand. i think now, she was drinking water to compensate for her hunger. i think as a result, she was peeing a whole lot and this also contributed to the problem.

the vet told me if pellets are her only source of nourishment right now, i need to be giving them until she is satisfied. she told me to give her probably 1/2 cup each day until her timothy hay cubes arrive and i’m certain she’s eating them (i know she will as she loves those cubes). immediately after i got up the phone, i put a quarter cup of pellets in her bowl. she ravenously ate so much, leaving pellets left over. (she never does that.) she ate a whole 1/2 cup yesterday, over multiple trips to the food bowl, and there was some pellets still in the bowl when i woke up.

the other thing i did since yesterday, i realized how selfish and awful i was being, and started being patient with her instead of just being annoyed and upset. i started petting her a lot more, and just rewarding her for going on the pan with lots of love and pets. i also started watching her very diligently, pretty much the entire day except when i was asleep – if she started drinking (usually she goes to the pan after a big drink), i came in and prompted her to sit in the pan, and far enough in that she won’t pee over the edge. the whole time being really encouraging and using low, soothing tones. on the pan i kept petting her gently, telling her she’s good, in that same tone. she responded really well to this. (usually i kind of talk to her like another person, and recently i’d been really annoyed at her and i told her how much it was upsetting me… 🙁 i think now this also contributed to the problem, i didn’t even think about it before..)

since then, in such a short amount of time, she has started getting pretty much back to her normal self. no peeing on the floor. when she goes in the pan, she’s turning back in to the corner like normal so it doesn’t go over the edge. she is even flopping again, a lot, especially after she eats, and i hadn’t seen her flop in so long… i also noticed she drank her normal amount of water since i increased her food (instead of the increased amount she’d been drinking). part of me wonders if her excess drinking was a majority of the problem.

i hope this thread and update gives someone else perspective and hope if they face a similar problem. maybe just keep digging until you understand what’s going on. it could be something so simple.. just like people, rabbits don’t just change suddenly for no reason.. and also – reach out to your vet. or rabbit experts. they are experts and might be able to figure out what’s going on when it has you stumped. i feel so grateful for my vet, because i did not even understand how poorly she was being fed during this time.

the point is just, don’t give up on your rabbit. and if you’re upset at her because of a behavior problem, maybe look at yourself first and try to make sure you are not the one who is the real problem 🙁 and don’t just get upset from the bad behavior, make sure to love and reward for good behavior, too. that’s only fair 🙁 call a vet, seek advice, and try different things to solve the problem. Things don’t change for no reason and it could be something simple. i hope you will not give up easily on your bun!

Thanks for the advice on the pellets. Hay cubes are going to be here soon. I will try the oxbow stacks too. Just curious – what’s the main difference between the stacks and cubes? I got the impression they were the same.

Oh. I didn’t realize that. Thanks a lot. I will definitely get some of those too.