New Rabbit on the Block

[aubzx3]

Hello!

 I recently bought my new flemish giant, Wilfred. He is about 4 months old and is still getting used to everything in my house. I have been trying to bond with him as it was recommended on a few websites for 15 minutes once or twice a day. He is very skittish around me and whenever I try to get him to come out of his pen he runs to the back of it away from me. What else can I do to get him used to me and get him to play with me.

I am also in the process of trying to litter train him without success. I keep moving the pan anywhere I can find that he is pooping, but he still poops all over the pen. What else can I do to ingrain in him that the pan is where he should go to the bathroom. I read on another forum that it could take weeks to do this, and I’ve done it before with puppies, it’s just this rabbit is a whole new ball of wax!!

 As mentioned above, any and all advice is appreciated!!

Thank you!!

[aBeautifulHope]

My Luna was like this when we first got her ☺️ What I would do is just lay in front of her pen (so she would have to pass me to get out to explore) and do my homework/cruise the Internet/read/chill out ignoring her for hours. And that really, really helped her get over her fear of people. The key to it was not to even really look at her until she was confident enough to come up to my face and walk all over my body while I was laying down☺️

And regarding the litter training…I’ve had all four of the buns I’ve owned before do that exact same thing, and what cured it was a) being NEUROTIC about sweeping the cage/keeping it clean & b) put a litter box everywhere they had an accident (one of mine literally had SIX litter boxes in her cage before she caught on) and once they are consistently doing MOST of their poos and all of their pees in the boxes (and all of mine picked one hat they liked more than the others) slowly remove a litter box at a time ☺️ Both of my current girls were trained within a week using his method (so by 9 weeks old?) and even now that they’re going through their hormonal stage all pee stays in the litter box, and most of the poops as well ☺️

[aBeautifulHope]

Oh! And you can always add a litter box back if they need it. Up until about a month ago my little sister’s lion head needed two litter boxes or it was just poop city!

[tobyluv]

It is a lot easier to litter train a rabbit that has been spayed or neutered, so you might not have much success with that until Wilfred has had his surgery.

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