Should I wait to litter train?

[Number1Sticky]

 I have a 4 year old female rabbit that is not litter trained and not spayed. I’m planning on spaying her in January. My question it do you think it would just be easiest to wait to try to litter train her (again) until after she’s spayed? I know it’s hard to train an unsprayed rabbit. So I just figured it would probably just be easier to wait.

 

What are other people’s opinions on this?

 

Thanks!!

[Stickerbunny]

My unspayed female trained after one week, so it’s not impossible – you can start and see if she’ll get it, but don’t be discouraged if she doesn’t quite understand until she is spayed. Just remember: do not put bedding or litter anywhere else, JUST in the ltter box.

Note: Yes she is spayed now. Just wasn’t when I got her.

[Monkeybun]

I would start now, so she gets used to the idea.

[bunnyfriend]

My unspayed female took 3 days to completely litter train. I would start her now, everything won’t be completely lost after the spay most likely. Mine never lost her good habits post spay. A good way to start is to make it so in order to eat hay or pellets she must be in her litter box (so you either put the hay and the food bowl in the actual litter box or hang it on the cage/ect. above/next to the litter box).

[Number1Sticky]

I probably should have said this to start out with, but I wasn’t thinking. Sorry.

I have tried training her in the past and she will literally not go in her litter pan until her cage is full. I got her from my cousin/bff and she was litter trained, but now that she’s with me and can smell my other rabbit (house separately) she will not go in her litter pan. So it’s more of a hormonal thing I believe.

This time training her, I’m going to take all her bedding out except in her litter pan. But I just don’t know what she will do if I start right now. Will she poop/pee outside her litter pan and make a huge mess or will she go in her litter? [that was a rhetorical question ] I just don’t know.

[Sam and Lady's Human]

You can go back and read a couple of your other threads, it will prove impossible to train a rabbit when you have both bedding and a litter box. They simply can’t read your intentions for either. Just put litter in the litter box, and see what she does. She might pee outside it, she might not, there is no way to tell until you try. If she does, clean it with a tissue and stick it in the litter box. It shouldn’t take long for her to catch on.

[bunnyfriend]

Oh I see. Hmm well it’s worth a try to take the bedding out, that very well may be the issue. She’ll have a couple accidents but she might start using the litter box after she realizes what is going on. Rabbits naturaly want to keep clean habitats. Just be very diligent about cleaning up urine messes right away with something like a vinegar/water mixture. She’ll get the hang of it!

[Elrohwen]

Start now. Litter training isn’t really “training” – it’s really setting up the cage and environment so the bunny will succeed. Most bunnies want to do their business in only one area, so if you set up her cage to encourage this she’ll get the hang of it even if she has some territorial marking because she’s unspayed. Removing other bedding and putting hay in the litter box is really 95% of litter training.

[Number1Sticky]

Well I started with the litter training. And it’s going pretty good. She gets about half in the litter pan and half outside. But she always pees in the litter pan. So that makes it easier to scoop up the poop and put it in her litter pan.

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