Posted By RabbitPam on 11/20/2012 05:40 AM
Hi, Shmoo,
Sorry we didn’t catch your post the other day, so I want to pick my brains for you now. How did the shopping go?
Looking at your set up here, I think it would be ideal to just attach the xpen to the 2 cages with it and have a nice, big area for them. You don’t want any litter anywhere but in the actual litter pans. But it looks like each bunny is used to their own house, so you can work with that. I would keep one litter pan in each small cage where they can each use their own. You can put the dishes out in the xpen if they eat and share well together. But if you’re worried about one eating all the pellets and not sharing, put a small pellet dish inside each cage so they can go in their own for pellets and pee. One may attempt to eat the others’ pellets, but the cages have their own scent, and you can shoo one out of the wrong pellet dish. (The thief). You may find that each one opts to sleep in their own cage as well, since they like to feel safe and cozy while sleeping, which can happen within their familiar cage. Or they’ll decide to snuggle to sleep together in a space they choose.
Otherwise, let them arrange and explore the larger area of the attached xpen. Move their toys out so they can play together or separately. If they seem to want cover there, you can put a new, larger cardboard box for them to snuggle under. Or get a Tunnel from the BB store where they can run through it or hide and snuggle inside it. I think you’re on the right track with your ideas and I want to see what you come up with!
Thanks for the reply! I did actually get it all set up on Saturday night and they appear to love it so far. I’ve kept the cages as is for now. Honestly I don’t think they’ve used the litter box I put in the xpen. They’ve eaten the hay and Mum’s loves to lay in litter boxes. haha. They’ve just been going in their litter in the cages. Mumbles seems to like to lay out and relax in the xpen, but Stitch still appears to be sleeping on top of his house in his cage. It’s kind of hard to tell because when I’m home, I let them out to run free. I usually catch Stitch still in his cage when I wake up. lol. Stitch is a bit more food happy. Mumbles doesn’t really eat treats that I give him and he doesn’t eat his food right away. Stitch doesn’t hog it all though. He’ll just randomly steal some bites from Mum’s bowl. I haven’t seen them fight at all. I’ll probably leave the food separate for a while. I don’t actually have a litter pan in the cages because it’s so small, but I did buy a tiny litter pan that I might try putting it in one of them and see how it goes. It’s about the size of the area they have for litter in the cages.
Here are a couple bad pics I took on Saturday night.
Oh yeah, I bought a big area rug to put on the bottom and cut holes in it to zip tie the bottom of the xpen, so it doesn’t move. They’ve kind of dug at the blanket, but they haven’t touching the rug yet. It’s a blanket they know too. I did wash it because it was all smelly because they were not litter trained when I first let them have it. lol.