wnen do the poo wars stop?

[Ruffles&Daisy]

It’s been a week since we brought Daisy home.  She’s sweet and starting to really show off her cute little self.  We are happy to have her.  We’ve been switching their cages, doing bathtub bonding etc. and feel like we are starting to get somewhere.  Ruffles will still get some of her fur to fly (bad boy), but the thing that is bugging me the most is the poo wars.  When will they stop?  Poo doesn’t gross me out or anything, but I’ve prided myself on having a perfectly littertrained bunny.  And also, I just finished up a bad of YN and am using Feline Pine.  I think Miss Daisy is mad because she actually PEED outside the box….. grrrr…. Will I have to retrain them?  Mommy’s so mad! 

[MarkBun]

Took Dono 5 weeks to finally calm down with marking his borders with cute, lil flags.

[KatnipCrzy]

I think the poo wars progressively gets better with the bonding process and as they get to know each other.  Be thankful it is just poo.  My bunnies started with poo AND pee wars.  But the pee portion of their “assualt” has resolved with time.

[Ruffles&Daisy]

Ok, well I can’t figure out if Daisy is peeing outside of her cage because I changed her litter, or because she’s just being a brat. Also, with the poo, is it worth while to put their poops in their box and continuously say “litterbox”? or is this just a phase that they will go through since they are marking their territory? I can handle it but I don’t want them to begin “new” habits that will be hard to reverse.

[MooBunnay]

If you already had a perfectly litter trained bunny, I’m thinking that the poops are just territorial poops, and not actually a lapse in litter training habits. Either way, it probably doesn’t hurt to put the poops back in the litter box, but I don’t think that the poop and pee wars will really cease until they are used to each other’s smells. You could try moving that along by switching their litterboxes every night or every other night to get them to start getting used to each others smell.

[Ruffles&Daisy]

Well I thought they were doing with the poops, and then I switched their cages for the night and VOILA! the poo wars start again. My daughter came into the bunny room and screamed, “mom, they had a bunny war!” So, honestly, they don’t poo or pee anywhere but their cages, never outside of the cages. And it doesn’t even matter if they are in their own cage or not, they are totally marking their spots.

BUT on the other hand, they no longer get annoyed with each other. We let them out at the same time every day and give them the run of the first floor and they get along very well. They snuggle, the follow each other around. I still can’t house them together, but they are def getting along better. So, what’s up with the pooping all over the cage? If they like each other and feel good about each other, why all the marking? On Friday it will be the 3rd week of having Daisy around. I can handle it and do it, but I’m feeling like I’m constantly cleaning their cages.

[Beka27]

Once they are permanently housed together it should decrease. Mine always did that thru the entire bonding process. Another thing they did was when put into the other pen, they’d run over to the litterbox and unload about a liter of pee. It’s like they could not wait to make their smell the dominant smell.

So are you just letting them run around together or are you doing sessions in a confined area? You’ll want to keep it very focused at this point so they can move on to the next step.

[Ruffles&Daisy]

Thanks Beka, so I’m going to assume there is light at the end of the tunnel. As of now, we haven’t been doing any forced bonding exercises since they are able to co-habitate without any fur flying. My husband didn’t think we needed to, but I’m glad that you said we should continue. I wasn’t sure what the next step was. I don’t want them to just cohabitate or tolerate each other, I want them to truly enjoy each other. So tonight, we’re off to the bathtub again. I’m not sure they can handle another session on the washer!

[Beka27]

The bathtub is probably not necessary if they’re already doing well in the general living area. I’d stay in their shared space, but confine it so they only have access to the one room. If they can stay together in the area for hours at a time, and go in and out of one or both of the pens, then you could try an overnight in one of the pens.

[Ruffles&Daisy]

They were both in Ruffles’ cage tonight grooming each other. He was actually grooming her too, which is very surprising. We are going to shoot for tomorrow night for an all nighter in his cage.

[Author]

Messages