Litter box question

[Skyyysthelimit]

 Okay, so I have a question.

Loki is our Dutch rabbit.  He’s estimated to be somewhere between 1 and 3 yrs.  We’ve had him for a little under a year and he’s unaltered.  We got him from a friend of a friend who does private rescue and she kept him in a medium sized cage with a folding gate so he had a play area.  Before that he was kept in a small cage inside a bathtub.  

We moved about two months ago, but before that we started him off in a two story hutch with a folding gate for play room to get him accustomed to having more space than he was use to.  We immediatly began litter training and he did very well.  Eventually we opened up his territory so that he had run of the full living room.  He would go back inside his hutch where there was a litterbox on each level or the the litterbox on the opposite side of the room to use the bathroom.  

Like I said, we moved at the beginning of October into a larger apartment.  We decided that since he had been good at using his boxes, didn’t mark with urine, and didn’t chew much we would let him have run of the entire apartment, with the exception of the bedroom (he only marks our bed or blankets).  So we set his hutch in the living room and put the boxes on each floor like before, but omitted the third box elsewhere.  He’s been fine so far.  However, we left for a week to visit family for the holiday and the girl who was coming in to feed him put his hay out on the floor instead of in his boxes.  So, when we got back he had peed in the hay instead of the litter.  It also seemed as though he was peeing around the boxes instead of in the box because there was urine all around the outline of the box and in one random corner of his cage.  I attributed this to the mix up in routine.

So, this leads to my actual question! Sorry for the book 

We want to sell the hutch.  It takes up a large amount of space and is really only serving as a fancy litterbox house at this point.  He has tons more hiding spots and cardboard box houses, etc.  I’m afraid though, that taking away the hutch will mess up his litterbox routine.  What can I do to help him better adjust?  I planned on leaving the litterboxes in the same corner he was using (just sans cage) and maybe getting litter boxes with higher sides or something.  Like I said, we don’t have litterboxes in any other parts of the house because he’s never used the bathroom anywhere else.  Do you think I should put one in the bathroom or somewhere else anyway?

 

Thanks to anyone who took the time to read this! 

[piperknitsRN]

Bunnies like routine, so while I understand that you want to sell the hutch, it’s a good idea for you to have some kind of cage or pen in case you need one (X pens are collapsible and fold up neatly for storage)–say if he gets sick or needs surgery (heaven forbid)–and as a place where he can go to hide away from the world. I’m grateful to have my X pen so I can shut my two bunnies in at night (they have free range during the day while I’m home) and have some peace of mind knowing they can’t get into anything. I’ve only ever left them out a couple of times at night, and once, they ate most of a vinyl eraser left on a lower shelf of a bookcase.

So yes, continue to use lots of litterboxes; you can always subtract them when he gets the hang of it (I take it he’s back to normal–i.e., peeing and pooping in the litterboxes now?)

It sounds to me like he’s marking new territory, too. Neutering him would help with the marking, though it may take a month or more for the hormones to die down.

Hope this helps!

[Skyyysthelimit]

He went back to normal immediatly. We took the hutch down last night and I put down a liner with two litterboxes side by side in the same corner that the hutch was in. He’s been so far so good. As far as x pens go, he jumps right over those. And when you put him in any type of enclosure he just chews at the bars – in the last home he was in he broke a tooth from doing that, so I’m hesitant to lock him in for any length of time. Of course, if something were to happen, like surgery we would have an enclosure for him. He has a lot of hiding places with the furniture and tables and such. We also have cardboard boxes with holes cut out for him. Thanks!

[Sam and Lady's Human]

Sounds good! Rabbits are adaptable, though some do cling to routine more than others I think. Lady has never had a cage in my ownership, she’s always had a pen that she jumped out of until I expanded and made it bigger for her, now she’ll stay in until I let her out. Samson has a cage that I leave in her pen and open because she likes to jump on top of it, so it works. They both go in their pens in the evening, but my goal is to have the free range together eventually. They are both young still though, it’ll be a couple years

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