liiterbox issue at night for Charlie

[whispercalm]

Charlie has been doing great with daytime litterbox habits. We are having trouble in the evening and overnight. Charlie is free roam of our downstairs. Our house is not large. We have a litterbox in our kitchen dining area and one in my craft/bunny room. The craft/bunny room door is closed unless my husband or I am in there to limit the amount of space Charlie has access to.  It’s also where Charlie sleeps at night. It has french doors which we close at night.

The problem starts in the evening before Charlie goes to her room for the night. About 7 evenings ago, Charlie came up on the couch which she loves to do to romp and snuggle. She sat on my husband and majorly pooped then peed on him. Almost every evening she comes on the couch sits on one of us and poops a ton then leaves. The peeing has happened twice. This is in our living room area and not the craft/bunny room.

Then when in her room at night (craft/bunny room) although using her litterbox, she poops around the part of the litterbox is in also. The night before last there was less of this and much more in the litterbox and I thought good progress. I do spend some time during the day and evening in this room with door open and Charlie comes in and out using one or the other litterboxes well. It’s overnight in this room that she is having problems.

So this morning I find more poops then ever outside box in her room and scattered around and she had peed on the tile floor near the edge of the area rug. Litter box is about 20 inches away. She has never peed outside litterbox in this room before. I don’t know if this is related to our vet visit yesterday and her ear infection and URI or what is going on.

 

[DanaNM]

How old is she? Could she be hitting puberty?

Often when buns hit puberty their box habits go out the window.

. . . The answers provided in this discussion are for general guideline purposes only. The information is not intended to diagnose or treat your pet. Seek the advice of your veterinarian or a qualified behaviorist.  

[Bam]

I too would guess that this is about her hitting puberty. It will be difficult to fully litter train her until she is spayed. Her new hormones are urging her to mark her territory and make her presence known to all the other buns in the vicinity, even though they are pretty much non-existent 😬

While this is very inconvenient, it is at least perfectly healthy and normal.

Its still good to try and move her to the litter box when you see her raise her tail to pee, and to pick up stray poop and put them in the box. That way she’ll know where pee and poop should go once she’s spayed and has gotten over most of the instinctive need to pee- and poop mark her area.

 

[whispercalm]

Charlie is  close to 4 months old. Our vet wants to wait until the first of the year to spay since she is small and we aren’t exactly sure of her age. She was better last night.  She did not pee on us last night and as far as I can tell used the litter box in her room to pee. But there were poopies everywhere in her room this morning. That I can live with. It was strange because as soon as we opened her room door this morning she went straight the litter box in the kitchen dining area and pooped a ton in that box. I’m sure your right it’s probably hormonal behavior.

[whispercalm]

I’ll be sure and put the poopies she drops around the room in her litter box and if I see her raising her tail or find she is peeing outside box again I’ll move the box to that area.

[Bam]

Four months is very young and few rabbit vets would attempt a spay before the age of at least 5 months. The rabbit’s size and weight is important too.

 

 

[whispercalm]

So the little stinker surprised me tonight, I was sitting in the craft/ bunny room in a chair with her and she suddenly jumps down in a hurry and runs over to the corner of the room dropping a lot of poopies along the way. In the corner I could tell she was peeing and peeing a lot. I took her over to where the litter box is in that room and she looked at it and ran out of the room and jumped in her litter box in the kitchen dining area.

I have now put another litter box there so there is two in this room. I have a feeling I’m going to get up in the morning to a room full of potties everywhere. Hopefully she will pee in one of the litter boxes like she did last night.

its so strange she only starts this behavior in the evenings.

 

[DanaNM]

4-6 months is typical for spaying, so I would not want to wait until 1 year… especially since she is being so hormonal.

Hopefully adding boxes helps!

. . . The answers provided in this discussion are for general guideline purposes only. The information is not intended to diagnose or treat your pet. Seek the advice of your veterinarian or a qualified behaviorist.  

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