Litter training

[Cay07]

Hi all,

I’m currently in the process of litter training my rabbits. They are all in separate confined areas and have two litter trays each. All three have been neutered.

At the moment I use wood pellets with some hay on top to line their litter tray which works fine and is cost effective, however after reading about litter training some more I have noticed a few people saying to leave the floors bare with no bedding. I have a wooden hutch for two of them (separate floors each) which soaks up urine and leaves a smell on the floor if it is left bare when the rabbits have accidents. I have tried puppy pads with newspaper on top, the rabbits just chew them. I have tried plain newspaper to line the hutch, same again they just chew. The only thing that really works for all three is a puppy pad, newspaper and then a fleece blanket on top as they don’t chew fleece. I’m worried that leaving the hutch bare will ruin it and I definitely can not afford a new hutch/cages/runs/play spaces for them to be trained in at the moment.

Do you think they will still be able to be litter trained even though the floor has fleece that absorbed their urine?

[Doodler]

Hi there! It really depends on the bunny. I had a bunny that would pee on anything soft, which is not unusual, so I couldn’t leave fleece in the cage when I was litter box training him. The other two were fine with having fleece. You obviously have to do whatever you can to prevent the urine from getting into the wood. If they continue to go on the fleece I would get something like vinyl flooring to put in the hutch instead. When I used vinyl flooring liquids still got through so I would make sure you get something really thick or still have something waterproof underneath it.

[Cay07]

Thank you for your reply!

Vinyl flooring is a good idea, I might see how much that is near me or see if anyone has any spare.

I’m actually super impressed with my rabbits today, I only properly started litter training two days ago and yesterday when I let them out on their own in a small area for a run around they still pooped everywhere but today there was nothing!! Only one poo outside the litter tray from one rabbit, the other two didn’t leave a thing! This stayed he same when they went back in their hutches as well so fingers crossed in the morning I’ll have an easy clean up job.

[Cay07]

Hi everyone, 

Just another question.

I have read that during the bonding process rabbits litter training gets ignored and they may stop using their litter tray to mark territory. Would I be better waiting until they’ve been bonded to properly litter train or should I continue and hope they pick it back up once they’ve properly bonded?

[Asriel and Bombur]

The biggest thing about uinbonded bunnies is mainly the poop. My boys are unbonded and litter trained, but they poop everywhere. So basically they will pee and do their actual poops in the litter box, but they territorial poop everywhere. You can still train them and set a good foundation.

[Cay07]

That’s good to know, thank you! I’m glad you said that because they’re doing really well with their litter training so far

[Author]

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