More space = Worse litter habits?

[Darwin]

I know there are about a million and one litter training questions, but I am here to add another… 

Darwin lives in an x-pen in my bedroom.  At night/early morning he could be very noisy chewing on the bars indicating that he wanted to be let out.  So, I decided to bunny proof the whole room and now the door to his pen is open all night long. He no longer wakes me up at the crack of dawn, woo! But, his litter skills seem to have taken a hit.  He used to poo in the litter box about 95% of the time and is now down to about 70% of the time.  He only poos in the pen (no where else in the room) so do you think that the change is territorial?  Obviously this is not a huge deal, but because it seems to be directly caused by the change in situation, I’m thinking it might be a behavior I can correct.  Any advice or suggestions would be great! Thanks

[Stickerbunny]

Whenever my two gain more space I have to do it very slowly, gradually expanding their room until they have the amount I want them to have. Or, as you see, buns can get territorial and start marking. Keep cleaning it up and placing it in the litter box and he should hopefully adjust. But, you may have to confine him again and slowly expand it instead of just giving him lots of room at once.

[Darwin]

Ah I suspected as much. May I ask how generally go about gradually expanding space? Do you have multiple pens? When I first noticed this I thought maybe I could help fix the behaviour by keeping his pen door locked during the day, do you think the amount of time he has out could also effect this? Or is it primarily just the amount of space?

[Stickerbunny]

Mine don’t stay in pens. They have a room and I have individual baby gate sections (http://keepsafeco.com/bmz_cache/0/00d1323919e7e65c36d30d10dc4e341a.image.350×249.jpg) that I can build/take apart based on what shape/size I need to expand their run area. I just make it go across the room from wall to wall and gradually pull it back as they get used to it being bigger. Amount of time out doesn’t do anything for mine, except if they are locked up too much in their room they actually do protests by making a huge poop/pee mess outside the litter box.

[Darwin]

Okay, makes sense! Thanks for the help I’m going to give it a try

[bunnybundtcake]

hi everyone, my bunny pierre has the run of the livingroom and he sleeps in his hoppity habbitat connectable cage system at night. when i first set up the cages, i connected 3 of them. pierre had so much room to sleep and poop that he started to urinate and poop in the sleeping part that has a compfy towel in it to sleep. my vet (who only cares for rabbits and cats) told me that sometimes the more space a buns has to deal with, the more apt they are to become lazy with their bathroom habits and they forget that they should go potty in their specified place ( their litter box). the solution for this problem is to confine your bunny to wherever his potty area is for a lengthier period of time. she told me to eliminate one of the cages and let him have only 2. what this does is remind your buns to poop and urinate in his actual potty place. of course a buns should always have lots of room for running, jumping, and huggies, but sometimes as they get older, they become forgetful so he needs a gentle reminder of good behavior. my pierre is about 4 yrs old and he’s the happiest bunny with a very sweet personality!

[Author]

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