I need some help with litter training

[LanMan]

Hello all,

I am new to this forum and website but have found it very educational!! Anyways on to my troubles. I have a male rabbit who is about 2.5 years old and will not use the litterbox! I have tried everything. I put it in one corner and he uses the other corner. I move it to the other corner and he lays in the middle of his cage and does it there. I tried the hay in the box trick and well he now uses the litterbox……………..AS HIS BED! and poops and pees in the other parts of the cage. The only thing left to do as far as I know, is line the bottom of the cage in nothing but litterboxes 

He has being neutered as well and that did not help. He has being an outside bunny for the 2.5 years of his life. His outside partner passed away so I could not leave him out there by himself alone so I have brought him inside and he now lives with the family and my female bunny inside(separate cages for now, she was also just spayed). Any thoughts on how to get LittleMan (my bunny) to use the box?? My other bunny PeeTee, she took to the litter box at 6months and has being great!! I even tried to put some of her used litter into his box to get him in there and still………………..nothing.

Thanks

[Floppy]

My bunny used to pee in two corners. I was slowly trying to get it down

to one corner and also IN the litterbox…now he is such a good boy and uses his

litterbox…what I did was….

1) read the litterbox training section under Bunny Info on this website.

2) got my bunny neutered

3) finally moved it to the corner he liked to pee in the most cause I did move it

back and forth for awhile…also I got some newspaper soaked in his urine and I

put it on the bottom of the box and I put the litter on top of it …I think this sealed the

deal! goodluck!

[BinkyBunny]

It sounds like your bunny has built habits that are going to take some effort and time to break. Out of curiosity, how long ago was he neutered?

Also, do you have any other pets?

How much freedom does he have right now?

– My suggestion is to limit freedom to the size of an xpen. And of course during training, put down things that you can wash up easily.

– As soon as you notice he’s gone in the wrong place, get a paper towel clean up the urine and poop, and put a piece of the urine soaked paper towel into the box along with some of his poops.

– Then clean up the residual urine and poop on the flloor with a solution of 50/50 water & white vinegar. Sometimes if you use other scented cleaners, it will make a bunny mark over the perfume kind.

– Get a few litterboxes, add hay and bury in a few healthy treats, like rosemary and mint.

– Spend 20 minutes a day focusing him on actually litter training him.

During the 20 minutes: 

-Get in the x-pen or be in the room with him watching him closely through his cage (whatever set-up you have) Best time to do it is when he eats, because many bunnies will poop and pee when they eat. 

-The best way is to catch him in the act, and at the very moment he begins to lift up his tail then scoot him to the box.

-Try not to pick him up and put him in there, but if he won’t go on his own, then just put the front part of his body in there and touch him on his backside to encourage him to get all the way in. Allowing him to get in will make it better for him to learn. (all the while, saying the word litterbox),

-Then give him a treat OR if he seems threatened or bothered while in there and/or jumps out if you approach him while he’s in the box, then it’s best to back away completely so he feels safe in there.

-During all the other times that he is not peeing and pooing during your training session, then use that time to teach him what the word "litterbox" means. So every few minutes start saying the word "litterbox" and guide him to the box.

If you do this everyday, then I would say in a few weeks, he will jump into that box on his own, so if you start to see him lift his tail up, you can repeat the word "litterbox" a few times, and he should jump in.

All of this may take even more time though as he is a bunny that was never used to using a litterbox. So be prepared to do this training everyday for several months. 

Good Luck and keep us updated!

[BunMumTiff]

I feel your pain hehe. Oreo is almost 2 the vet guessed and when I got her she was not impressed and REFUSED to use the litter box. During the summer he was outside alot on my balcony but he is now abck in with em full time, I never realized how much I missed him. I moved him into a new cage which was larger and I covered the bottom in ASpen as I thought litter trainin would never happen. Then after a week I put Aspen only in the litter box and never outside of it. It took me really two weeks to litter train once she was using the litter full time Is witched it over to yesterdays News litter and we are good to go now lol

Patience is the key

[MooBunnay]

Even though your bunny used the hay filled box for a bed, I would recommend you continue putting hay into the litterbox. My boyfriend (somehow) is an expert at getting bunnies litter trained and I think its because he is a neat freak What we do is pile a bunch of hay into a large litter box (or two) – then, any time the bunny pees or poos outside the litterbox we immediately clean up by cleaning the pee with vinegar, and picking up the poops and putting them into the box (all of them, we don’t throw any out). Then, we vacuum the cage floor once a day, pick up any stray hay or pellets on the floor. During litter box training time we only offer hay IN the box, or in a hay rack directly OVER the box. This keeps the floor of the cage very clean, and keeps the bunny IN the litterbox when eating. Somehow, this has worked within about 1 month for every single bunny we’ve ever had! Also, during this time, the bunny stays in an ex-pen. I think its key to keep the cage floor clean and keep the litterbox full of poops because that provides a consistent message to the bunny that the floor is NOT for poops and the box IS.

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