How littertrained is your bunny?

[kismet]

I’m just curious. My Conk man is fabulous about his litterbox but I’ve had rabbits in the past that were terribly hard to train and never really “got it” even though they were all fixed. Those were the first rabbits I tried to littertrain though, so I’m wondering if it was my fault or had to do with the fact that they were ex show bunnies. I’m really not sure.

Anyway, just wondering about your bunny’s habits personally. Do they leave occasional pills outside of their cage/pen? Do they poop all over their pen but not outside of it? Or are they as reliable as a cat with their habits?

 

PS I’m new here, here is a pic of my lil man. Don’t act like he’s not the cutest bunny you’ve ever seen!

 

This was after he was recovering from his seizure which gave him head tilt My poor baby.

He’s completely recovered at this point, thank the bunny gods.

[jerseygirl]

Hi Welcome! Firstly, your Mr Conk is a cutie-blue-eyes! Glad he got over the head tilt. The avatar pic is so good!
Secondly, you’ll fit right in here – we love talking about our rabbits litter habits – lol ! No joke!

My bunny Jersey got it from the time she was a little squirt. I got lucky I think. She would leave the occasional pill as she explored but I find these days and post spay, she is worse about that. She seems to poop outside of the box on occasion to let me know something I feel. I just don’t know what!! Generally though, she’s pretty good. She’s free range and I’m not sweeping up poop from all over the house so I can put up with some by her litter box.

As for you experience, I’m not sure. I would have thought show buns would be litter trained for convenience? I’m totally guessing here – maybe show buns are used to things a certain way, very strong routines. So if you used boxes or set up a habitat they weren’t used to, perhaps they protested by not using the box? As you may know with litter training, the rabbits will ‘tell’ you where they want the box, even disapprove of the type of litter and size sometimes.

Another reason could be that they were just regular rabbits and your Mr Conk is an Angel 

Be interesting to hear of others experiences.

Bit off topic, but it was funny to see your screen name… Somewhere there’s a bunny who I’m convinced is my Jerseys long lost brother. I saw him on a rescue site but alas, he was already adopted. His name was Kizzy and I thought if I had him, I would have renamed him Kizmet!

[bitterepiphany]

Meco came litter trained.  (Another advantage of getting a shelter rabbit.)

I don’t know what she was brought into the shelter on.  (I know the cage she was brought in in had a wire bottom) but when we brought her home, she was on wood shavings and had created a “litter corner” of her tiny cage.  It was only two days before we built her new cage for her and moved her out of the little one they’d given her, but the first thing we did was remove the wood shavings and give her a proper litter box (which took up half of her cage!) 

Since then, she’s used it without grand fail.  The first night that she ventured out of the cage into the strange new house, she left a few pellets behind in all of the places she has now designated as “hers” (behind the chaise, under the dining room table and smack in the middle of the living room) but we vaccumed them up right away (so as not to give her the impression she could leave droppings everywhere and, since then, she just uses her two litter boxes in her cage.  If she’s out and about when the urge strikes, she goes back to her cage to handle her business.  Now, in her cage, she really only leaves messes in the litter boxes, but she does have a habit of kicking the contents of her litter pans out when she jumps up – and that can result in a messy poopy cage.

[DallasDelight]

I actually didn’t start littertraining Dallas until late October. He pees in his box without exception, and usually always poos in there, but he still has quite a few poos outside the box every day.
I just got Duncan a few days ago and started litterbox training right away, he is definitely ‘getting it’. He had 2 pee accidents the first night he was here(which is understandable), but since then, he has less poos outside his box than Dallas! haha!

[Beka27]

welcome here! your boy is too cute for words…

i always think of “littertrained” as ALL of the pee, and MOST (if not all) of the poop.

i have a bonded pair. i had my girl Meadow first (in my avatar) since 4 months and she was pretty perfect right away. they did some littertraining at the rescue i believe, and when i got her home she was awesome. i can count on one hand the pee accidents she’s had in 1.5 years. a couple were just accidents (pee over the side of the box), 1 or 2 were bonding-related (marking territory), 1 (or maybe 2) were illness related. she wasn’t spayed until 7 months, but i really don’t think puberty even affected her habits too much.

My boy Max (i rescued him 6 months ago as a mate for my Mead) is my lil’ perfect potty boy. ;o) he was at a rescue run from a woman’s home. i have total respect for this woman, she had about 30 rabbits, 15 or 20 of which lived in a warren-like setting. they were housed outdoor in a safe-enclosure during the day, and brought in and caged at night. outside, they pooped wherever, but as soon as she brought them in, they went potty in their boxes… i brought him home, his feet had been a little dirty from having played outside that day, so i gave him a foot bath. right away, he took to the litterbox.

there was some poop marking while i bonded them for the following 3 weeks straight. since then, they’re perfect. even tho they have free-run during the day, i only put their litter in the xpen. my house is small, so they will always return back to the pen to use the potty. they have two boxes side by side that they each use. one box is a litterbox solely, one is also a hay manger… Maxie has big feet, so it’s not uncommon for him to kick out some poops when he jumps, but at most it’s like 5 poops a day on the floor of the pen. not a big deal to me at all. i’ll walk in and just toss ’em into the litterbox and go about my business.

[sweetbluebun]

First off Mr. Conk is an adorable and strinkingly handseome bunny! I love the eyes. It seems like the other posters have had better luck in their littertraining that I’ve had. Cheeky, my 9 month old ND was really good in the beginning, 95% of his business ended up in the litterbox. Unfortunately these days he’s gone to picking his poops out as they come and he cracks them like eggs. This results in powdery, crumbly pills all over his pen and a big mess at the end of each day. Luckily he always pees in the box which is helpful. Guppy, my 3 month old holland lop is pretty good for a baby. He pees in the box 90% of the time, but poops are another thing. I’d say maybe 70% end up in the box while the rest accumulate through out his pen. Guppy also has a cecotrophe overproduction issue which doesn’t help because he will leave those anywhere, not necessarily in the box. Another thing that happens is that the bunches seperate because Guppy runs through them, which leaves a lovely smattering of smelly cecals all over his pen.

[RachelF]

that is one of the sweetest bunnies i’ve every seen!

Honey likes to spiratically poop outside of her litterbox(but still inside of her xpen)– most of the time its when the box needs a change.

She’s excellent outside of her xpen.

[Kokaneeandkahlua]

OK you got me! That may be the CUTEST bun I’ve ever seen!!!

Kahlua likes to leave poops all around a litter box, Ruperts great and Chuck is perfect. They’re all fixed but Kahlua is super territorial and a ‘punisher’ (brush her? Poops on the bed…) so she’s not that great! When I first brougth Rupert home, she ran up to him, chomped him on the nose and peed all around his cage!! And shes the smallest cutest thing ever! LOL

[Hedi]

My Hoopie who came from an HRS was littertrained when I got him. Perfect litter box skills. Carrera I got as a baby and didnt fix her until she was 4yo but even pre-spay she always went to the bathroom in one corner of her house. Now she always pees in her potty box but sometimes leaves marking poos along the edge of her cage to warn the other 3 buns where her territory starts.
Cooper came from a rescue and I had him fixed 3 wks after we got him. He loves his litter boxes even laying in them so typically he does very well.

But Pookie..oh Pookie is another story! Pookie is a ND as well. My husband calls it crop dusting and we keep thinking we should put a cork in her bottom to stop the dust cropping. She is horrible! She was potty trained before she was bonded with Cooper and they have been together for almost 2 yrs and she leaves poos everywhere! You can always tell where she has been! So I have no idea what she is thinking. Her poos are SO small that I have to laugh everytime I see them around. Marking? Forgot her potty box skills? I have no idea.

Maybe its the ND short bunny syndrome. they can do as they please in all things. lol

[dlscanne]

My first rabbit, Franklin took forever to litter train. That being said, I had her for 9 months before she was spayed, so that is probably part of it. About 2 months after being spayed she seemed to get it! Poops and all. But she still has one problem….her litter habbits are extremely location driven. As in, I will pee and poop in the same place, as long it is on your bed. When I moved, it was as long as it is on your living room couch. Not cool Franklin. I’ll admit, I tried to train her to go somewhere else, but after washing pee out of your couch 7 days in a row, it gets old fast. So she wins (for now). As my boyfriend pointed out, well, our couch fits about three people, and Franklin is a part of our family, so she can have one cushion for her litterbox. Imagine watching a movie, curled up with your rabbit’s litter box.

Then we got Winston, neutered already, about 3 months old. He got it right away. I can also move his box to a new location, and he will seek it out and use it. Although, he still likes to poop all around his box. I solved this by keeping his litter box in a store-bought cage, which is connected to a NIC cage. It contains everything very nicely.

[Beka27]

oh my. that sounds frustrating!

i can imagine you having a friend over to hang out. you move the litterbox, say, “come here, have a seat.”

Franklin hops in their lap, does her business, and hops away… LMAO!

[Balefulregards]

Coco is 100% about urine. She gets 90% of the poop in the box – and pills JUST outside the box – I think this is to remind that cat that this is HER place.

I see maybe 5-10 Non litter pills in other areas per day – but I don’t view this as a big deal – I just sweep them up.

But I confess that Coco has a Corner box ( her main box with Yesterdays news and aspen) and the rest of her cage ( she is free range) – which is covered with aspen and care fresh. I don’t get too worried about the rest of the litter gets soiled. I am happy with what she does.

[2lops]

*shifty eyes*

…uhm..
I’m working on it.
I’ve given up since Pudge enjoys to flip his litter box over scattering the mess across his cage.
Leila isn’t trained either. Same problem with her. I’m going to have to like, duct tape it so it doesn’t move. They’ll have to be trained sooner or later with the huge kitty litter box so that they can be trusted in a room by themselves all day.

[dlscanne]

Hehe yes Beka we warn all of our guests before they sit down…”.if she hops up here, push her off! Quick! Then put the litter box back!” Everyone thinks I am crazy. With good reason. We tried locking Frank up for the night, so she would HAVE to go in the cage, but she would literally hold everything in all night, and be so anxious in the morning. The second we let her out she would sprint to the couch and make the biggest pile of poop you’ve ever seen! that didn’t seem healthy so we gave up.

[MarkBun]

Maryann was a feral rabbit and took to a litter pan the first time she went potty and NEVER leaves as much as a single poo outside of the litter pan. She has actually ‘held it in’ for hours until she could find a litter pan to use. Dono is also just as neat except when he’s munching on the hay. The lil piggy is too absorbed to use the facilities. I have tried putting the litter pan under the hay but they don’t want it there.

[Lily]

Fluff and Puff are not so great at the litter thing. They dont have one in there cage because i dont want to crowd them, but the nfirst day I got them Fluff hopped over to a newspaper on the floor and peed on that, so i put it in the litter box.  Puff and Fluff pee in the litterbox, so thats awsome. Im not sure about my new bun, Foofoo, She hasnt really taken any notice of it, but none of them pee in it Im hoping they will learn soon…

[Lightchick]

My buns (one was a shelter-bun, and one was a park-bunny) were perfect from the beginning.

My BF’s bun, Thumper, isn’t neutered yet, and he tries REALLY hard…sometimes he misses, though. We took him medium-sized kitty-litter-box, and put it in a cardboard box that was nearly the same size, and it has magically fixed the problem! He used to back up too far, and do his business over the edge of the box. Now, the box keeps him from backing up too far. And keeps the hay contained. And gives him something to destroy when he’s bored…

[Beka27]

tiger.lily: how big is your cage for them? if you don’t have the space for a litterbox, i’d recommend you look into a larger housing solution, especially if two bunnies are sharing that space.

[FluffyBunny]

Mr. Bunny took about two weeks after we brought him home to get the hang of it. For the first few days he would pee in random parts of his cage and SOME of his poo would be in the litterbox…Then after about a week he started making some of his pee in the litterbox…by about 2 weeks after he came home he was making most of his poop and all of his pee in the litterbox, now he’s perfectly trained – All of his pee and about 95% of his poop is in the litterbox. He was just at the beginning of litter training when we adopted him, he mostly taught himself, lol. BTW: Gorgeous bunny

[MarkBun]

[Lily]

Two of them are in the X-large cage, not room for a litterbox because they have a log carpet thing, I want to get them littertrained for when they run (They spend most of there time when im home hopping around my apartment) , Training them in cage isnt as big of a deal because i change it regularly. Foofoo is in a medium cage on her own.

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