litter mess

[Pam2]

Hi All,

I have a question for all you bunny experts. I have my Holland lop for about 8 months now and I have to say, he is a pleasure. He’s very sweet and well behaved. I shouldn’t really complain, but as of late he has started a behavior that is kind of messy. I do have him in a cage, as we have two cats and do not have a room for him to have as his own. Also, I am in a rental house and so I have to be respectful of the home and not allow too much of a mess.

I let him out every day for an average of 8-10 hours, so he does have lots of “running time” and freedom.

Anyway, as of late he has taken to kicking most, if not almost all of his litter out of his box and it ends up all over his cage floor. I use yesterday news and clean his litter box out every morning. At first I thought maybe he was annoyed about his feeding schedule in the morning. I give him veggies every morning and I thought if I was late, he got annoyed, but I fixed that and he is still doing it. It seems like he does it twice. I clean it up the first time and he does it one more time and after I clean it up the 2nd time, he settles in and stops.

It’s just a mess to keep having to clean up his cage every day like this.

Any suggestions or advice would be much appreciated. The litter box I have for him is one of those big corner ones. I think it’s big enough for him, he is not quite 5 lbs. He is neutered. Like I said, other than this habit, he is very well behaved and doesn’t get himself into much trouble. It’s also weird that he usually only does it twice and then settles in…. I don’t get it. What is he trying to say??

Thanks in advance for your help with this…

Pam

[jerseygirl]

You could try put a grate over the litter to stop him from digging – though for a corner box that may be tricky. It might be worth trying him with a rectangular box just to see if it is infact the size of the box he suddenly has an aversion too. Is he digging it out then sitting in the box to lounge at all? I dare say he just finds it entertaining and it’s also getting your attention. Perhaps try a diggy box alternative for him. Just a cardboard box on its side filled with scrunched up paper may entertain him some.

[Monkeybun]

My 2 bunnies like their cat boxes, the full size rectangular ones. Its harder for them to shovel litter out of those than a corner one would be

[Karla]

I was just wondering if you could make some kind of small digging area of less messy things, as it seems that this is a fun thing for him to do? Or do as MB suggests, so he can still digg and it won’t mess up the area.

 

[Pam2]

Thanks for all of your suggestions. I will give them a try. The “diggy box” sounds like a good idea. I might try that first and if it doesn’t work, I’ll give the cat litter box a try.

As always, thank you for your help. I greatly appreciate it.

Pam

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