Litter box help

[Isabelle]

I adopted my first bunny about fifteen days ago. She is a Dutch breed, spayed, five months old, with a clean vet check a few days ago. She is litter box trained just fine in her large cage, a few pellets next to her litterbox a few times a week but that isn’t a problem for me. I place her hay right next to her litter box. I have a four foot x four foot vinyl puppy play pen that I’m letting her run around in because I wanted to see her bathroom habits and get her used to myself and her new surroundings.

I let her out a few hours a day in her play pen, and stick close by and also play with her and such. She has a few toys, and I move her litter box into her play pen with her, in the spot she designated by pushing it there . She does not have hay with her in her play pen. During the day she either will not pee or poop outside of her litterbox in the play pen or go once or twice outside of it. If I let her out in the evening or later at night she will go EVERYWHERE around her play pen! I mean like twenty or thirty poops and one to three urine spots. I try to put all of her poops in the litterbox and wipe up the urine right away, and try and herd her towards her litterbox, but after two weeks she hasn’t gotten better.

The vet didn’t suggest anything really, just said she might get better when she’s older, does anybody have any suggestions? I don’t feel comfortable ever letting her around the house or in my room until this is resolved, and honestly its getting me down as a new pet owner to have to pick up thirty poops and three urine stains every day for the next eight years.

[Karla]

How about placing the hay in the litterbox? That’s what I did with my female who had problems learning to use the box, and it worked. Well, actually I put ALL her food in the litterbox, as she was quite stubborn. The thing is that bunnies poop where they eat. So to teach her to use the litterbox, you have to give her something to eat there.

And until she’s got a hang of it, I really wouldn’t feed her elsewhere. It is no fun to have a bunny that goes everybody but in the litterbox, so you might as well go all in.

[jerseygirl]

It’s good you’re restricting her space to just the pen at the moment. She may be marking up the new area with pee and poop so hopefully this will die down. Is she only newly spayed? It might take a little longer for her habits to improve.

Does she have access to her cage from the play pen? If so, try leaving her box in her cage and pop another one in the pen also. She might go back in the cage to toilet.
Hay in the playpen box and maybe something yummy to encourage her. When she does use the box in the pen, make a big fuss and tell her good girl etc.

[Isabelle]

Thanks for the suggestions. I’ve been leaving her in her play pen for smaller amounts of time and it seems to be helping, I was thinking now perhaps she doesn’t want to go anywhere but in her cage. Is that a normal trait for bunnies?

[Free2Dream]

Oliver didn’t want to leave his cage for the first couple of days we had him, even though he knew he could go in and out. (His cage is medium-sized, but it connects to a larger playpen where there are toys and a lot more room to lounge and hop about.) Now he seems to spend an equal amount of time between both places. It might just be her comfort level right now… is she pretty shy in general?

Whenever we catch Oliver going potty where he shouldn’t be, we calmly say “No,” scoop him up, and place him on his litter. When he’s finished, we praise him and offer a piece of kale, his favorite veggie. We’ve only had him since 7/18, so he’s far from perfect about it, but every day he seems to make less mistakes. Bunnies are very intelligent critters, so I think consistency and patience are definitely the key.

[Author]

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