Litter training, part deux

[Andy]

 Hi All

I posted a message here a week or so ago looking for ideas on litter training our new dwarf lop (now 11 weeks old), who we are keeping indoors in a cage. We’ve now had her two weeks. For info we use wood pellet cat litter, while the floor of the cage is lined with newspaper with shredded newspaper on top.

Anyway, she’s still peeing everywhere except in her litter box, mainly next to her food bowl (I even watched her pee in the bowl yesterday, just after she’d had a good munch on pellets that I’d just put in). The bowl is in a corner on the far side of the cage from her litter box. We recently introduced a second box near to the bowl but it hasn’t helped (she just pees in the six inch space between the bowl and litter box). Do you think I should move the food bowl out of that corner and put the litter box in its place?

She also pees a lot in a spot near the back of her cage, but not right against the back wall, and not what I would call a corner (which seems to go against everything you read about rabbits liking to pee in corners). She very rarely does her business in the litter boxes, but does spend most of her time lying in them.

She also poops everywhere, but most often in the same spot where she pees by her food bowl (I assume she poops while she’s eating). I was interested to read elsewhere that a litter trained rabbit is one that “does 100% of pees in the litter box, and most of its pooping in the litter box”. But I thought rabbits naturally pooped as they ate, so how do they manage – do they hold it all in until they’ve finished eating?! We have a hay rack above one of the boxes, and while we get a few poops in that box, most of it appears by the food bowl.

The next plan of action is to take out all the bedding except for what’s in the litter boxes – this seems to be a common suggestion on the forums. Would you agree? I’m just concerned about changing things around too often, plus she enjoys nibbling and “rearranging” the newspaper bedding. I don’t know how she’ll react to having nothing but the plastic base of the cage. (Also, she pulled up the newspaper in one corner the other night and peed on the bare plastic, so I’m not holding out much hope for this next plan).

It’s hard not to get frustrated (especially when you read so many articles saying that it “only takes a week or two”), although I realise we haven’t had her long, and apparently they are harder to train while young…

More suggestions greatly appreciated!!!

Thanks again

Andy

 

[mocha200]

You shouldn’t have anything on the floor when litter training. It confuses them about were to go. probably likes the feel of the news paper better then the wood pellets. Could you try taking all the news paper off the floor and putting a little bit of shredded news paper on top of the wood litter? She might like that better. You could also try moving the litter box to were her food is. She wont be 100% trained until she is spayed.

[Stickerbunny]

Some rabbits can’t be trained until they are altered, some rabbits can. Taking the bedding out is a good step, as they tend to dislike having to walk in their own urine (rabbits like to be neat) and the plastic won’t absorb the liquid.

Some people put the food bowl IN the litter box if their rabbit tends to make a mess while eating their pellets. My buns both make droppings while eating hay, but pellets they generally don’t so I have their food bowls elsewhere.

Make sure when she goes anywhere but the box you clean it up with vinegar/water to avoid remarking.

[Silly Sungura]

I know what you’re going through. To solve the problem, I had to buy a bowl to clamp over the litter box. My rabbit pees and poops wherever she eats her pellets. She has hay in her litter box also, but she doesn’t care as much about that; she has access to other hay in addition to the hay in the box, and she never pees or poops near it. It’s the pellets that matter for her. It’s contrary to what most people experience, but moving the bowl and water so that they were accessible only from the litter box immediately solved my problem. Except for some stray poops that she kicks out of the box, she is nearly 100 percent reliable.

Definitely try putting some shredded paper in your bunny’s box, like Mocha suggested, and do get rid of the paper from the floor of the cage. Other than the litter in her box, you don’t want anything absorbant in the cage for now. If your bunny’s like mine, though, moving the pellets may solve your problem. Always make sure you’ve got plenty of hay in the box, too, if you’re not already doing that. If none of this works, she will likely improve after being spayed. Good luck, Andy. Try not to be too discouraged. Your bunny will get the hang of it!  

[LoveChaCha]

My dwarf caught onto litter training pretty quickly.

Yes, as the others stated, take out the newspaper. I would add that putting hay in the litter box encourages usage of the box. Also, put the stray poops in the litter box. It tells bunny ‘you go here.’

[Andy]

Thanks for the useful advice. I removed the bedding last night and for 24 hours had a pee-free cage – all in the litter box! The downside is that she had left a few night droppings lying around in the cage and managed to trample them flat. When we came home from work tonight the house really stunk! It’s put my wife off the idea of not having any bedding, which seems to help absorb the smells. Watch this space…

[Stickerbunny]

Nothing absorbs the smells of night droppings when smooshed, especially not newspaper… trust me. My boy has news paper as litter in his box and when he smashes his cecals instead of eating them, it smells something awful, even after he eats the smooshed up ones off the newspaper. Cecals typically are done at night and will be eaten though, if she’s producing too many it could be due to diet, but it should not be a common thing to come home to the cecal smell.

[LoveChaCha]

Poops are easily picked up

By having newspaper all over, it is showing that toilets are all over the place, hence the confusion. As bunny gets older and is spayed, the habits should get a lot better.

[Isabelle]

I have a plastic based habitat type thing for Dutchess with a ramp and hiding spot and such. I got her when she was already litter trained, but this might help you later on. In her hidey spot under her ramp/upper platform I put aspen bedding, then on the opposite side of her cage is where her litterbox and hay are. This way sleeping footing and bathroom footing are separate with plastic space in between to separate them. She does occassionally pee a bit in her bedding, but I figure it’s more to mark her bedding/habitat when I clean it all out every week.

[Monkeybun]

Agree with Sticker; the night droppings really shouldn’t be left to step on. If bun is leaving them, she has too rich of a diet.

[jerseygirl]

Agree with Sticker; the night droppings really shouldn’t be left to step on. If bun is leaving them, she has too rich of a diet.

Triple ditto. This can usually be easily remedied also. It seems baby buns produce excess for a while as they adjust to new diets. Some people have found they needed to adjust type or amount of pellets. For me, I found the alfafa hay was the culprit so I gave this more sparingly.

[Andy]

Well so far so good. Now 48 hours since taking up the bedding and she hasn’t peed anywhere at all (except in the tray)! Lots of praise for her.

Her cage is next to our sofa, and she’s been doing a few in the corner of that, but a second litter tray there seems to have done the trick (she has used that a few times now). It would be nice if she learnt to return to the litter tray in her cage to do her business but that’s probably too much to ask, and I don’t want to sound ungrateful after our recent successes!

She does seem to leave a lot of poop when she’s hopping around the sofa – don’t know if she’s just marking territory? (We haven’t been daring enough to let her down to floor level yet – the room isn’t rabbit-proofed).

May be one for a new topic but she bit my wife twice this morning, then did it to me not long afterwards, when we were both sitting on the sofa. Any ideas why? We were only sitting on the sofa, not trying to pick her up or touch her.

Anyway, thanks again for the various litter training tips above. Much appreciated… She’ll be off to the vet this week for a check up, and to get some advice on when to have her spayed.

Andy

[HoneybunnySara]

Before I had my bun neutered, he bit both of my little boys ( wasn’t at all concerned, figured they had scared him or something. ) then he bit my sister in law on the toe, for no reason. They were all bit hard enough to bleed a little. My husband was scared of him for a long time. Until recently, actually. After he was neutered, no more biting! Sometimes a lil love nip, or a ” give me a treat, or move outta my way, leave me alone ” nip. But no draw blood, ouch that hurts,bite.

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