Litter trained bunny pooping outside of box

[Bunny Hugger]

When we brought our bunny home from the humane society he was already litter trained (he was 1 year and 3 months old). We’ve had him now for almost 2 months and he is a free range house bunny. He has one litter box on the main floor as he was not using the smaller litter boxes we put in other locations but he has NEVER had a single pee or poop accident outside of his litter box (aside from marking a toy we got him but this was resolved once we moved it). Over the past 4 days he has been pooping just in front if his litter box. He mostly seems to do it when we are not home. He has not left poops anywhere else. We are starting to get frustrated and are unsure what to do! Please help!

[vanessa]

It could take some troubleshooting. There could be a myriad of reasons. I’ve had bunnies break their litter box habits because of the presence of another new bunny, they outgrew the box and hung their butts over the edge, nerves, happened to be eating at that spot, and other reasons I haven’t figured out. New furniture, new anything could be a trigger. So could health problems. Is there anything new about his surroundings? Is he fixed? Would he like an even larger litter box? I have a bunny who uses a large litter box, but still lines her perimeter with poops. My other bunnies are all very good with their boxes. This one is just not as good. Has he been eating food just outside of the litter box? Perhaps try a few types (low sides, higher sides, flat sides, larger)?

[Bunny Hugger]

He has a large litter box that he’s been using since the second week we got him. He is fixed. He eats in various locations (likes to move his hay box around at times). All of his other behaviours are normal and he uses his box 100% of the time when we are around (up until 4 days ago he used it 100% of the time period). The only thing I can maybe link it to is that on Monday morning we woke up to find a bunch of significantly smaller poops around his litter box and then we clued in that we hadn’t seen him eat any hay in awhile. Normally we feed him a mix of orchard grass and timothy hay but we had been running low on the orchard grass. Also around this same time I put out a willow basket (bunny safe that I got from binky bunny) thinking it would be decoration since he’s never shown any interest in chewing items before or eating willow. However this basket must’ve been different as he destroyed it and ate most of it over about 4 or 5 days – he had stopped eating hay around the time I brought out the willow basket. On monday I started giving him a mix of orchard grass, timothy hay, and a small amount of botanical hay. His hay eating habits went back to normal and his poop went back to normal in less than an hour. However, since those initial small poops around his litter box we found that morning he is continuing to leave us those poops!

[vanessa]

I would try to get his arrangements just like they were before this started. I would also limit the possibility of him eating outside his box. If his belly is feeling weird from that short span of not eating hay, that could perhaps be his reason for pooping outside the box. I’d get him back to eating hay normally, and then male sure he only eats in his litterbox, almost to retrain him. Try giving him his salads and whatever else – where he has to be in the litterbox to reach it.If his belly is feeling normal again, maybe he just “developed” a new habit that you’ll want to train him out of.

[Bunny Hugger]

Thank you! We’ll try that

[Author]

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