How to train older rabbit to use litter box?

[blackfang]

I adopt Belle yesterday. She is almost two years old. (yes she is spayed)

She isn’t using litter box at all. she pee and poop all over the floor.

I decided to train her to use litterbox by searching some tricks through google search engine. No good tips to help me

 

What did you do to make your older rabbit to use ltter box?

Please share your suggests.

Thank you.

 

[Sarita]

I would do it just as any other rabbit.

I would start cleaning her area at least twice a day and put those fecal pellets in her box. Don’t give her too much space for awhile.

Make sure the litter box is large and put hay in the litter box.

Be persistent and patient.

[Monkeybun]

I got Smudge trained by shrinking her space, and putting in lots of litterboxes, so she got used to going in a box. Then I gradually increased ehr space as she got better at it. So far, only one accident, and it definitely was a butt too high over the edge thing.

[blackfang]

I cleaned her cage twice today.

She is eating hay on litter box right now

Monkeybun, I never thought of that before! Thanks for telling me! Right now, Belle is living in temp. cage from the pet store. (It was used when I adopted Romeo, its biggest cage that I can find in pet store until I found out that I can built my own cage) So, let see how she will do in little space.

Thanks, Sarita and Monkeybun!

[jerseygirl]

Congratulations on your new bunny Taurus! It might take a little adjusting for her as she’s in a new environment too.  Was she at the shelter very long?

The tips given so far should help alot.

[blackfang]

Thanks Jerseygirl!

She was in shelter for almost a month.

[foxtailskies]

One of my rabbits was adopted as a 2 year old and had never seen a litter box in his life… I set him up a litter box as suggested here, loaded with litter and hay, and spread newspapers around the outside of the box just in case there were spills. He had 1-2 accidents but within a couple of hours had gotten the picture, and never had another issue again Magic does happen!

[Moonlight_Wolf]

Yea I find that the tiny commercial cages actually are very useful for litter training a bunny. My bunny Thistle took forever to litter train, but eventually he caught on! I don’t have any advice that wasn’t already given but I just wanted to say Don’t give up! It took thistle weeks to become litter trained and I thought it would never happen!

[Ham Sangwich]

Have you thoroughly cleaned the cage she is in after the last occupant? It could be that she is scenting her cage. A great way to clean the cage is to get a bottle of vinegar and wipe down the whole area with it. It eliminates odor. We use it at the shelter often. Make sure to dry the cage and stuff because vinegar is pretty strong smelling! 🙂

[bunnnnnnie!]

My bun Zeus is 2 years old, and was just litter trained a few months ago.  He’s now 100% litter box trained, so it can be done!

I think the best things for his litterbox training was..

1. A big, DEEP litterbox.  I use a dish pan, and it works great.

2. Cleaning up the area 10+ times a day.  No, I’m not kidding.  The second he’d poo or pee, I’d clean it up immediately and put it in his litterbox.  I also would clean the cage with vinegar every few days to make sure nowhere in his cage would smell like pee except IN the litterbox.

3. Making sure there’s no hay available anywhere else except IN the litterbox.  He now has it in a rack next to the litterbox, but when I was training him I put the hay in the box itself.

[Jb]

I am trying all of these tricks for my daughters Flemish giant. She is about 2 and has been spayed. There are days I think she is finally getting it and then days that she doesn’t have a clue. We keep her in the bathroom in a small pen with two litter boxes. She mostly will always pee in the box but never poop. I know she is smart enough but part of me thinks she might be a bit stubborn. I feel bad with her in the pen so long and would like her to have free range of the house but don’t want my house stinky. Any advice would be greatly appreciated!!

[Jb]

I am trying all of these tricks for my daughters Flemish giant. She is about 2 and has been spayed. There are days I think she is finally getting it and then days that she doesn’t have a clue. We keep her in the bathroom in a small pen with two litter boxes. She mostly will always pee in the box but never poop. I know she is smart enough but part of me thinks she might be a bit stubborn. I feel bad with her in the pen so long and would like her to have free range of the house but don’t want my house stinky. Any advice would be greatly appreciated!!

[Sarita]

Hi JB – please start a new thread in the Behavior section as this thread is 5 years old and we ask that member do not reply to old posts. THank you.

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