Perplexed and frustrated, looking for opinions and advice

[Doodler]

My bunnies have been bonded for almost 2 months now and recently I am seeing litter box habits that have be perplexed and frankly very annoyed.

My first bunny Doodles was always fantastic with his litter box habits.  In the year he wasn’t bonded he would have a few random poops right outside of his box that is in a cage, but other than that he has done less than approximately 10 random poops outside of the cage in that year.

Delilah has never been as good but still wasn’t bad.  She would do a lot more random pooping outside of the litter box, also in a cage, but would rarely do a random poop outside of the cage.  At most she would usually have two random poops outside of the cage a day. When she did they were almost always right where she hops out of the cage.  She did have one urine accident on the carpet and sometimes pees over the box but that is it. 

During prebonding they really never marked each other’s territory except once Doodles pooped all over inside her cage.  The didn’t even do marking around the pens used as a barrier.  During bonding there were two days of urine and poop galore but then everything settled down.

Now to my current situation.  About a month into them being bonded I am now experiencing my only regret that comes with getting a second bunny.  About two weeks ago for multiple days in a row I found pee right outside of the cage.  I cleaned it up and it still happened around 4 more times in a week timeframe.  I moved their Ikea bed (trying not to use litter boxes outside of their cage) to the spot that was chosen and the culprit would pee on the other side of the bed.  I also found pee on the other side of the cage.  I am no longer finding pee but now twice yesterday and so far once today I am finding a small pile of poop and a lot more random poops outside of the cage.  This is all happening near the cage.  The first pile I found did have a combination of really small and large poops so I am not sure if that has anything to do with it.  Since then all poops are back to normal…just not always where they should be.

I posted a while back about keeping two cages or going to one and I decided to go with one.  It had been just fine until recently.  The one thing that did happen before this started to happen is I put a Tupperware of hay outside of the cage to see how they liked it.  Delilah used it as a litter box so it was removed.  I am leaning towards this being behavioral and I have yet to catch either of them in the act even though I spend hours upon hours in their room.    Could this just be a spring thing?  Could this be a temporary bunny war?  Do you think one needs retrained because the Tupperware through them off?  If so I don’t know how to even take that on.  Or…do you think I need to change my set up?  Put the second cage back (I really want to avoid this)? Or will this be my new normal and something I just have to live with?  I am starting to wonder if one doesn’t feel like jumping into the cage anymore but then again I see them do it all the time.  Doodles has been chewing on the plastic edge of the cage when he is outside of it, which I find very odd and unusual for him.  I really want to keep the cage because it contains a lot of the hay mess and usually the random poops.  I have been thinking about how they won’t want to keep jumping in as they get older so maybe I should look for alternatives now.  I have even considered thinking about cutting the plastic and some of the metal off the cage so they can just walk in.

Any ideas or opinions welcome and appreciated!  Thank you!!

Please also feel free to offer insight on which one looks guilty…..

P

[Kiki]

That little speckled one looks shifty I don’t know enough about this to comment though. I am having a bit of litter box regression too, after Indie was perfect for about a month post spay. Good luck! Your babies are adorable

[Sirius&Luna]

Is there a reason you’re trying not to use litter boxes outside the cage? Especially in a whole room, more than one litter box spot can be quite useful. I think it’s definitely worth a try.

[Bunny House]

Bunnies can be very very lazy in a lot of ways. If a box is just a hair too far they won’t go to it, they will just go where they are so I would get another litter box for outside their house and see if that helps. If not, you’ll need to relitter train them

[Doodler]

Haha Kiki. As soon as I posted the picture I was thinking that Delilah looks too innocent to be called out as guilty, although I know she’s far from innocent. Thank you! Your girl is adorable too!!

Sirius&Luna – Yes. The whole rest of the room is carpeted so that is why I like the litter boxes contained in the cage.  There are two in the cage.  Delilah tends to poop when she hops out of the boxes as well and before this started happening they both did some pooping in the cage. If I can keep them in the plastic area of the cage it’s a lot more contained. It also seems to be their area, hence the pooping…..and now poop and pee (hopefully this has ended!) around it (Although I am especially baffled by the pile of poop even as small as it might have been). I am just concerned if I start adding more out of a cage it will just expand the mess and be contained just to the room. Interestingly the pee I found were in the exact corners the litter boxes are in but just in front of the cage instead of in the cage, up until I moved that bed. The culprit is clearly going to the area they should but refusing to go a few steps and a hop further but only at certain times.

The other issue is the boxes I have. I am using the Ware Jumbo Scatterless and I like them because they have a grate. I haven’t found any other grate suggestions that work as nicely. I definitely want to keep the set up where they don’t have to stand in their own waste. All of the other suggestions I have seen, and even the grate sold on BB, help with pee but not poop. I also like how solid the grate is. I have hay racks hanging above their boxes because when I tried to put it elsewhere in the cage they just pooped everywhere around the cage like crazy, even though Doodles had it next to the box before Delilah came along. The boxes aren’t big enough to have hay placed on the bottom. Since Delilah is peeing over the side at times I think I may have to give up on my hope of keeping these boxes. If they would allow me to place the hay racks a little over that would resolve the pee issue, because she only does it when she is facing a freshly filled hay rack. So it’s either I deal with pee here and there or poop galore. I also know a lot of people don’t like these boxes but they have worked perfectly for us up until this point. I sometimes think I might get some vinyl flooring or something even better, if there is such a thing, and make a corner with bigger boxes, deal without the grate, and set the hay differently. With that said, I already have 4 area rugs and many tiles in that room to bunny proof it so I am not thrilled with adding more cleaning complications. I’m also not sure how well vinyl will lay on the carpet and would also still have the concern that this will just expand the issue and not resolve it since it will be far less contained.

Bunny House –  Do you have suggestions on how to litter train a pair when you don’t know which one is the guilty party, can’t catch them in the act and they clearly know where to go?  I know you are supposed to limit the space when training them but I will feel really bad ‘punishing’ them both by cutting their space.  I know usually you also add more boxes so I guess the answer would be to add more boxes regardless?

[Doodler]

I thought I would give a status update. I was in their room most of the day yesterday and one of them did a tiny pee accident a little further from their cage and it happened shortly before they were both in their litter boxes. It appears they peed and then went to their litter box. I again wasn’t able to catch the culprit. I woke up to only three random poops outside of the cage, which again is not really out of the ordinary. I am trying to decide if putting a litter box outside of the cage could make things better or worse, if I should change my whole set up and get rid of the cage all together, or if I should wait it out to see if they are still trying to figure things out. Thanks for the replies!

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