Liter box hay tossing

[Tom]

3 year old, New Holland Lop, Bennie. He’s a good house bun. 2 sister cats, 1 brother cat, and 1 sister dogo. Ben the bun uses a kitty litter box with a layer of shredded paper bedding on the bottom and Timothy hay on the top. Benbun eats the hay and poops and pees in the box. For his first 3 years I could always easily monitor his poops. Ever day he gets a fresh layer of hay and once a week a complete redo.
Recently he has started gnawing on the edge of his box and kicking his hay out of the box. It makes a big mess of his area and it’s now difficult to monitor his poops. I can’t figure out why he has started doing this.

I would be very grateful for any help or incite.
Thanks,
Tom

[arwen]

Has BenBun been spayed? I’ve had male bunnies in the past and noticed that the unspayed buns became more destructive than the spayed ones…maybe nothing but just thought of it….

???

[JLH]

my female bun started doing this just last month, she has always kept her litter box neat and tidy for over a year. I cleaned it every 2 days, I have a layer of bunny safe white absorbent paper and then a layer of hay. she started digging and pushing everything out on to the floor and would then pee and poop in her empty litter box. I got her a deeper litter box and that didn’t stop her either. It turns out she decided she no longer wants the absorbent under the hay as it mixes together sometimes. I bought a solid wood board and water proofed it and drilled holes in 2 of the corners for her pee and poop to fall through, she only pee’s in one corner and poops in the other, (don’t ask me why). anyway I put the layer of absorbent in the litter box and then I placed the board over the top and then put the hay on top of the board, like magic she stopped pushing everything out on to the floor. she is a happy bun now. you could use a litter box screen, I don’t because I feel screens can hurt a bun’s feet. she only spent her first 8 weeks of life in a cage with a screen at the bunny breeder before I brought her home and made her a free roam house bunny, she still has her cage but she only eats in it.

[Bam]

This time of year in the Northern hemisphere, many buns go a little crazy. This happens to desexed buns as well as intacts buns, although it will be more marked (pun half-intended) with intact buns. It’s the increase in the amount of daylight that affects the bunny endocrine system, i e hormones. Even desexed buns have some production of testosterone in their adrenal glands, and daylight also shuts down the production of sleep hormone (melatonin). It’s jokingly called “March hare syndrom”, and it’s normal.

This could contribute to your bun’s change in behavior. It doesn’t necessarily happen every spring. My bun Bam got March Hare Syndrom one spring only, he’d been neutered for a little over a year that time.

The differential would be pain/ discomfort. Is he eating his hay? Sometimes when a rabbit has molar spurs, the rabbit will start chewing non-food, like cardboard or furniture. You also tend to see changes in food preferences. If this continues, it’d be a good idea to have his molars checked.

[Tom]

This is exactly the same behavior. Thank you for sharing your liter box  idea. I will get started making Ben a customized liter box.

[Author]

Messages