The Lop and the Litterbox

[Llixgrijb]

For two weeks, I’ve been training my 12-week old Holland lop to use the litterbox outside of his cage. At 8 weeks old, he was already using the one inside his cage. It took him less than a week to learn how to do this. But even today, his toilet habits are inconsistent. Only 60% of his poops end up in the box but at least he pees in there 99% of the time. I consider it a marginal success. He needs a second box, now that he has free reign of my bedroom. 

I put that box in a place where he leaves the majority of his poops and puddles. He ignores the box and continues to pee and leave a trail of poops within a three-foot radius of that area. After he does his business, I take a brush and dustpan, sweep up the poops and put them in the box. When I clean up one of his puddles on the carpet, I take the urine-soaked Kleenex and put that in the box as well. I do this in hopes that he will see the box as the proper place for his business. He will occassionally sit in the box but I don’t know for certain if he actually poops in it. I give him a little piece of banana whenever I see him there as reinforcement.

Today, I was fortunate enough to catch him lifting his tail. I quickly picked him up and put him in the box and, sure enough, he went. A half an hour later, though, he left a puddle on the carpet. Just a foot away from the box.

Any tips? He is pretty young, might age have something to do with it?

 

[Winnie The Pooh]

My miniature lop was possibly younger than that when he started litter training, so he is not to young, sounds like you are doing all the right things. Although I didn’t have these problems with mine, maybe try moving the litter box where he goes most often, have you tried putting hay at one end of the litterbox, we have a hayrack above ours. And there will always be the odd poo around the place.
Hope that help

[Sarita]

I suggest you read this link – lots of good tips and advice:

https://www.binkybunny.com/BUNNYINFO/tabid/…fault.aspx

[NuggetBuns]

I agree with Winnie, it sounds like you are doing all the right things so far. We also have hay at one of the box so he can munch and poop at the same time. If he is peeing/pooping in the same spot a lot, put a litterbox there. You might need 2-3 boxes to start off if he has many favorite spots. Urine soaked Kleenex in the box definitely helps, but also throw his poop in there so he understands he has to poop in the box too.

[Chronicambitions]

Up until a week ago, my two neutered rabbits were still peeing and pooping all over my carpet. What I did to change this was I went out to Home Depot and bought a big piece of vinyl remnant to put over my floor and bought some new litter boxes that were a lot deeper than the ones I had.
Carpet is just too soft to not pee on also it locks in smells. If it smells like a bathroom to them, it must be a bathroom. We actually had the same problem with my dog when he was a puppy. There was a carpeted area in the front of our house. No matter how we tried to discourage him, he still chose to pee on our carpet. Our house smelled so bad and it was making us miserable. My mother was ready to get rid of him. One day I came home and my dad had ripped up all of the carpet in our house and our dog stopped peeing in the house from then on.
I suggest you getting some laminant or vinyl remnant to cover your floor. Even if it doesn’t stop your buns bad litter habits, it’s still way easier to clean instead of scrubbing urine out of your carpet.

The only thing that I find now from my buns are a couple territorial droppings in their cage area.

[Author]

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