Rabbits urinating on my bed all of a sudden! Why?

[Beth-28]

Kairi was a single rabbit for about a year. About a month ago (before we got new bunny) she abruptly started urinating on my bed. She is litterbox trained so this was not normal for her. Had her checked for UTI and other things…everything negative. Then she stopped doing it just as suddenly (still before we got new rabbit). Now we have new bunny and they are bonding nicely. Still are not completely bonded but getting there. They play together well, but do not like sleeping in the same cage. Yesterday, Puck (new bunny) urinated on my bed! This is a new comforter, so no smells from Kairi’s urine. Today, same thing…urinated right beside me on the bed. What’s going on? Is this a territorial issue? If so, why did Kairi do it before we got another rabbit? Please help…I’m tired of washing my comforter nightly!!” onmousedown=”return false;” src=”https://binkybunny.com/wp-content/uploads/converted_files/themes/BB_Theme/emoticons/sad.gif” width=”20″ height=”20″ alt=”” />

[Beth-28]

Btw, they are both fixed. Kairi is a female Dutch, and Puck is a Harleqiun-Lop mix male.

 

Thanks for any help!

[KatnipCrzy]

The bunnies are most likely marking their territory- it is VERY common that bunnies like to pee on beds and couches as these items smell like us (the owners).  So bunnies will do this when owned singly- and then adding another bunny can cause the behavior to start again. 

Until they are better behaved on the bed- either don’t allow them up there or cover it with something like shower curtain that the urine cannot soak thru.

My bunnies eventually matured and stopped peeing on the couch- but the 2 buns that I got when they were young, I had to watch them like a hawk.  Now that the household is settled- with me getting my youngest bunny about 1 1/2 yrs ago- they are settled and not peeing outside the box when they have a chance.  I think if I brought in another bunny (which I will not) that it would probably start up again.

I think a complete bonding will eventually most likely help- but they might also be marking against human scent also.

[Deleted User]

Hi Beth, I never had this problem until I got my newest rabbit, Duffy. He instantly would hop on my bed and mark it up and now all my rabbits do it too. I just block them off with cardboard, I keep the cardboard folded behind my bed and when the rabbits get run time I just set it up, it takes no time at all. Depending on your bed frame you can either attach it to the legs of the bed, or, what I did is run a length of cardboard along the bottom that I never take off, and the tall piece of cardboard just inserts into the bottom piece, if this makes sense. I like the cardboard because it is light and easier to store than blockades made of grids or xpan walls.

[Patrick Murtha]

I am having exactly this problem, too. My seven-month-old male Lionhead, Benjamin, is well littered-trained — really, he trained himself — but all of a sudden he has been leaving a lot of pellets and urine marks on the bed when I give him the run of the apartment. I am washing the bedding as soon as he marks it, but it does not seem to make a difference. One day when I tried to shoo him off the bed, he even sprayed me! But he is not leaving any urine marks, and very few pellets, on the hardware floor; he’s just using the bed as a litter pan. He has a regular litter pan in his pen, and another out on the floor, and he uses both of those.

I assume he is marking the bed in part because it is my bed. Benjamin is very sweet and physically affectionate toward me. 

He is such a well-behaved bunny otherwise, but this behavior is driving me a little crazy. Might he outgrow this? He is a cryptorchid (undescended testicles), and my vet was not enthusiastic to do risky exploratory surgery in his abdomen to try to find what might be very tiny, unformed testes. Therefore, I may always have an unneutered cryptorchid male.

He loves time out of his pen, so I guess that I will have to block off the bed (as discussed) or cover it with plastic. I do not want to keep him penned up all the time. I do hope that in his case, this turns out to be an adolescent phase, although I know that for some males it is a more permanent state of affairs.

Any additional advice?

[Monkeybun]

I’ve known a few bunnies that have had successful neutering done on undescended testicles, you may want to check with other vets about it. An unaltered bun likely won’t grow out of it. I suspect part of his “sweetness” is him just wanting to mate with you, it happens

[Patrick Murtha]

I’d be a little nervous about that surgery; it is not guaranteed of success, and is riskier than an ordinary neutering procedure for the rabbit. Also, it might be difficult finding a vet in Korea who has experience with it. My vet has experience with rabbits, but not (she was frank) doing that particular operation.

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