Bun still having trouble using the litter box

[moonbunny]

Hi guys,

My bun Nibbles (almost 5-years-old) was spayed and became an indoor bunny in December. I’ve had a lot of difficulty trying to litter-box train her, and she seems to be making no progress. She uses her litter box a lot, but she also poops/pees outside of it a lot. She has three or four corners outside the box that she likes to pee in, and she poops almost everywhere.

At the moment, she lives in a two-pen set-up with a blanket to protect the carpet. She poops all over and soils the blanket every day, which means that her pen area gets very dirty very quickly. I undo the entire set-up every weekend to clean it.

I’m hoping that Nibbles can become a free-roam bunny, but I’m becoming very discouraged and am starting to think that she’ll never learn to use her litter box properly. It’s been more than two months now and she’s not improving at all. I live with my mum who’s starting to insist that Nibbles live outside again because of the smell and the constant clean-up.

I found lots of resources when I was initially training Nibbles, but everything I’ve read says that bunnies are easy to litter-box train and I can’t find much information on bunnies who won’t use their box. What can I do to help Nibbles use her litter box? 

Thanks,

Laura

[Muchelle]

Was she litter trained before her spay and forgot how to, or has she never been trained up to this moment?

My guess is that she’s associated all of her enclosure to litterbox. Especially if you are using a blanket, the smell of her own pee and poop will linger and she’ll just keep going there. I’d probably tarp her area with something water-proof and use newspapers (if she doesn’t eat paper) or those absorbent sheets for puppies to line her enclosure, so that they’re quickly and easily changed. Make sure you have a big enough litter box (a cat one is good) to assure extra space and extra comfort and put it in one of her fave spots. When you clean up make sure to dump the poop in the box as well as some paper wet in her pee. You can clean around with a mixture of water and vinegar to erase the smell.

Cleaning with something that can counter her own smell is vital, if she just smells it in the litterbox she’ll catch up to it.

Also, what are you using as litter material? Are you putting some hay in her litterbox? If she realizes she can snack AND poop she should be convinced pretty quickly by this new idea.

Good luck, keep pushing!

[moonbunny]

Posted By Muchelle on 2/24/2018 7:07 PM

Was she litter trained before her spay and forgot how to, or has she never been trained up to this moment?

My guess is that she’s associated all of her enclosure to litterbox. Especially if you are using a blanket, the smell of her own pee and poop will linger and she’ll just keep going there. I’d probably tarp her area with something water-proof and use newspapers (if she doesn’t eat paper) or those absorbent sheets for puppies to line her enclosure, so that they’re quickly and easily changed. Make sure you have a big enough litter box (a cat one is good) to assure extra space and extra comfort and put it in one of her fave spots. When you clean up make sure to dump the poop in the box as well as some paper wet in her pee. You can clean around with a mixture of water and vinegar to erase the smell.

Cleaning with something that can counter her own smell is vital, if she just smells it in the litterbox she’ll catch up to it.

Also, what are you using as litter material? Are you putting some hay in her litterbox? If she realizes she can snack AND poop she should be convinced pretty quickly by this new idea.

Good luck, keep pushing! 

Hi Muchelle!

Thanks for all the advice. This is Nibbles’s first time being litter-box trained. I’ve decided to remove the blanket and leave the tarp that we had underneath it. I try to place her poops in her litter box as often as I can, and I use toilet paper to clean up her pee and then place some of the wet paper in her litter box.

I’ve tried spraying vinegar on the areas that she goes in, but she likes to lick the vinegar! So I don’t know if the vinegar will keep her away.

At the moment I use newspaper (and sometimes Carefresh) and hay in her litter box. She likes going in there a lot, but she still goes everywhere else too. 

I will keep cleaning up after her and try using the vinegar again. I’m determined to have her be free-roam

[sarahthegemini]

Sounds like you’ve tried/are trying almost everything! It must be frustrating. What is her litter box like, size wise? Some bunnies can be very particular about their litter trays. Have you tried using a different substrate? Carefresh is usually a good option but maybe she doesn’t like it? How often do you clean her litter tray specifically? Some buns don’t like a tray that is too dirty or even too clean!

[Author]

Messages