Litter Training Disasters

[Anniesmom]

Please help me, I’m at war with Annie. 

OK, perhaps not that dramatic, but I am feeling desperate. 

Annie  was spayed clear back last October, so it’s been 3.5 months. Her nipping has improved a lot, and she’s a lovely girl, headstrong and cuddly and always begging. It’s very hard to tell her that every piece of food I eat can’t be hers. She thinks bunnies can totally have things like pizza and candy and cereal and corn chips, and begs relentlessly. 

Anyway… We’re really struggling with litter training. While all her other hormonal behaviors have improved, this has only gotten worse. She pees in the box reasonably well, mostly. If her box isn’t cleaned to her standards or she’s running about outside and gets startled, she will pee outside, but mostly she makes the box. Pooping, on the other hand… 

She poops everywhere. In the box, out of the box, on the floor when she plays… Everywhere. I read that bunnies frequently want to choose where they poop so I let her move the box around her cage, but all she does is move it and poop where it used to be! I don’t understand why she does this or what she wants from me. We’ve tried a variety of litters from paper pellets to aspen to paper shavings, and she always pulls some hay down on top. Then, she pushes the box away. She poops in it sometimes, but it seems more like default since she happens to be sitting there anyway. 

She has a full size cat litter box, and I put it right under her food rack. But naughty Annie just moves it. I’m working on fixing it in place, but I doubt that will help much. 

I really want to give her a lot more free reign, but the constant mess is daunting. Please help me. I’m out of ideas. 

[Quinn_the_Cutest_Bunny]

If you haven’t already tried this, gather up some of the poop (the fresher the better) and place it in the litter tray. Keep the poop cleaned up off of the floor and place it in the litter box. Eventually, you SHOULD start seeing less and less poop on the floor and your bunny will poop more in the litter tray. Another thing to try would be to put some hay in her litter tray. As gross as eating where we go to the bathroom is for us, bunnies like to relax where they have food and they poop where they relax. If that doesn’t work, I don’t know. Good luck!

[Anniesmom]

I’ve been doing both of those things. She eats almost exclusively out of her litter box now, and I pick up and put back as much poop as I can. But she poops all over her cage and I can’t be around all the time to move it, you know?
I definitely started with those suggestions, and I can’t really limit her space any more than the current set up. I’d really appreciate any advice anyone on this forum could give me!

[LittlePuffyTail]

Have you tried offering another litter box? Sometimes that can help give bunny a sense of “my poops are spread around” and may help the oops poops.

[Anniesmom]

Mmmm, no I haven’t, there isn’t really room in her cage, and she’s not awful about pooping outside. I’m OK with a few oops, I just want her to use the one in her cage more when she’s in there. I’m thinking about making/buying a bigger one, if only to make it harder for her to move it around

[LittlePuffyTail]

A bigger potty may encourage her to spend more time in there.

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