Digging – This is New

[Firsttimer]

I don’t believe it!  Pepper was spayed in December.  She never ever dug in her litter or in her garden space.   So why has she started digging in her litter box this week?  I thought that was the kind of thing that stopped after spaying her, but she didn’t even do it before.

[Sarita]

No, that type of behavior doesn’t necessarily stop after spaying. I think this is just her thing to do – some rabbits are very active and need lots of things to keep them entertained. Perhaps she has just discovered this particular activity and it’s fun for her.

[MooBunnay]

Isn’t it a great habit for them to “pick up” ? My girl Juli AND my girl Grace both decide that digging would be a fun new past time for them one day. Juli literally stands with her back feet perched on the edge of her litterbox and flings every last thing out. Have you winessed Pepper doing this? It actually looks so funny you might forgive her for a bit

I have found that Juli and Grace do this near litterbox change time, when they start to get a nice pile of hay/poops in their box. To remedy the situation with Juli, I placed a grate over her litter, and hung a hay rack over her box rather than placing any hay in the box. I fashioned the grate by going to Home Depot and finding these plastic grates that normally go over flourescent office lights. They are this white kind of grate with small squares. I cut them with a pair of wire cutters to get them the right size (be carefull to make it the right size because the edges can be sharp and if its too small Pepper might get a foot stuck between the box edge and the grate and cut herself. This has worked well, and each night any hay or poops on top of the grate I dump into the box and place the grate back on top. Now Juli has nothing to dig Poor Grace is blind so I haven’t taken her joy of digging away from her!

[Gravehearted]

My Viktor goes through digging phases too. His favorite thing is to pull out the newspaper from under the litter. I think maybe he believes it’s some kind of bunny magic trick 😉

The grate over the litter can work really well as MooBunnay recommended. A lot of people really like the very high litterboxes or the ones with lids. You might also think about making a big digging box for her full of torn paper for her to dig in

[sarah bowden]

I had a similar thing happen. I bought a litter box with really high sides to prevent litter from falling out when they jumped in and out. Instead Helen decided that it was perfect for digging in. After a few days of cleaning up the litter box contents from off the floor (sometimes more that once) I brought back the old litter box. BUT she kept doing it. I was working from home one day and heard her start so I went in there and said ” No” and started cleaning it back up and putting it back in, while she was sitting in the litter box. That little rascal took her front paws and just shoved it fight back out, right in front of me!!
So I resorted to the water bottle (which I had never tried before) and after a few squirts she stopped all together (thank god)

Oh and to try and stop her I filled the high walled litter box with shredded paper so she could dig in it, but apparantly thats not as much fun as litter and poop!

[JK]

Wow that’s pretty funny.  I have also heard these grates are good if your bun pees a ton so that they don’t stand in there and get such wet feet.  I waste a lot of hay by trying to keep Edson’s feet dry.  Sounds like a plan to get the grate.

[babybunsmum]

Posted By MooBunnay on 01/15/2008 11:52 AM
Juli literally stands with her back feet perched on the edge of her litterbox and flings every last thing out.

hahaha… very funny!  i’ve seen baby do this with her hay.  after her operation i put her hay in an upside-down box lid with one side cut down so she wouldn’t have to jump into it.  she’d get in,  line her bum up with the cut-out part & fire the hay between her back thumpers & all over the floor.  then she’d smuggly flop down in the middle of the cleared-out lid.  lol. 

[JK]

This has been the funniest day for bunny antics!  Edson is so BORING compared to all the escapades I’ve been reading about!

[Firsttimer]

The box full of paper shreddings sounds like it could be fun for a rabbit, unforunately I think paper seems to be Peppers favourite food and i truly thing she would just pull out one shred out at a time and swallow.  What other kinds of grates could I use.  I have a corner box, I went and bought a kitty litter box for her when she had just been spayed but she just backed into the corner of it and peed over the edge.  I’m concerned that the full size cat litter box would take up too much of her cage floor space.

[ScooterandAnnette]

We took Bailey and Tegan to the park down the street the other day. Bailey busied himself digging a rather large hole in the snow with his front paws. It was very cute! Tegan had never been out in the snow before and didn’t really know what to make of it.

We would have brought the other two bunnies, but we weren’t sure where the rest of the harnesses and leads went.

[Author]

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