Too soon to expand bun’s new room?

[Chloe_<3]

Hello!

I am a 1st time bun owner to an 11 week old, Chloe. She has a 4 ft x 3 ft “home base” which opens up to my small family room. The kitchen is fenced off. I work from home so Chloe has full run of the family room and her home during the day and she goes into her cage at night. So far, she has been 100% peeing in her two litter trays and 75% of the poops are in the litter tray. I have read that if you increase a bun’s space too soon, they will lose their good litter habits. Since Chloe does not poop all of the time in the litter tray, is it too early to expand her area into the kitchen as well? I am a bit confused about the difference between territorial droppings considering she has not been spayed yet and droppings simply because she isn’t litter trained 100%.

Is it too soon to let her peruse the kitchen? I am excited to let her have full run of my apartment but I don’t want to live in a kitchen where it looks like i spilled cocoa puff cereal on the ground .

Thanks for your help in advance!

[Azerane]

Chances are that no matter when you introduce her to the ktichen, that you’ll have what looks like cocoa puff cereal lying around at least for a few days It will be new territory to her so chances are that she’ll want to poop a few times here and there. That being said, with her living in the areas directly by the kitchen, it may already smell enough like her that it may not matter. And if her poops are just “too lazy to go to the litter tray” poops and not territorial ones, you’ll end up with them anyway.

The other option is to wait until she’s spayed (that’s assuming you plan on doing so) because spaying reduces territorial pooping so she may not poop in there then. The other thing to mention is that not all bunnies are 100% with poops all the time anyway. You can get most to 95% but it’s only the rare bunny that will be 100% with poops all the time, which is only fair given the number that they produce.

Also keep in mind that she probably hasn’t had hormones kick in yet for her teenager phase, once they start to develop she may lose some of her litter habits (because hormonal intact rabbits are more inclined to mark territory) so she may at this point get worse before she gets better (not certain, some are fine).

Basically, to sum all that up. There’s so many variables that it’s impossible to know what she’ll do, but I’d say more likely than not she will end up pooping in the kitchen at some point. If you’re concerned about it, wait until after she starts to mature and you have her spayed. Much easier to train that way than to prevent an already occurring poop fest!

[Mimsy]

She is still really young, so if you do decide to open up the kitchen, I
would add a litter box perhaps. I did the opposite with Willow and started her in her pen and allowed access only to the kitchen.

when i let her have full range of our house she would poop by the rats cage in my bedroom and I added a litter box there. It solved it completely for us there. Then the bathroom she would go pee/poop on the rug in there so I added a box there as well. She stopped using the box in the kitchen. So now it’s just the box in her pen, the one by the rat cage in our bedroom and the one in the bathroom. She is almost 100%. Accidents are usually do to her doing crazy binkies through her litter boxes and therefore flinging some out.

Willow will be spayed in about a week and she is just turned 6 months. Knock on wood, the only hormonal displays have been some circling of me and the dog and some indignant digging at my foot and perhaps a nip if I dont start petting right away. I imagine after her spay we could have things get worse with the potty manners, but I suspect they will go back to normal in a few.

If you don’t mind them doing a bit of the picking of where the bathroom is, bunnies are pretty good about using it. Most seem to want to go in the same place/places.

[Chloe_<3]

Thank you so much for the advice! I don’t mind picking up poops so I will just see how it goes and add a litter tray in the kitchen. I am planning on getting her spayed but since she won’t be old enough for awhile, I have been feeling guilty keeping her confined to just the living room. Once she found out her food was kept in the kitchen, she has been giving me the most confused looks every time I lock the pen up to go to the kitchen . I know I am going to have to give in! It’s amazing how much my 2 pound bunny can rule the house already .

Thanks again!

[skysblue]

Actually not entirely true. I let my baby bun roam the entire house after like 1-2 weeks when I feel that she knows the gist of litter box. Been very good since then and even better after spaying. I wouldn’t worry about expanding space a all.

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