Bunnies rush into cage when I’m cleaning

[gingerg]

I have two four and a half month old holland lops. I’m trying to litter train them, and thus far, they’re peeing in their boxes, but only poop in their box when they’re in the box eating hay (I hang the hay racks over the boxes). My goal is to eventually give them the run of the first floor, but as they’re still young they’re confined to the cage and the xpen hooked to the front of the cage. I think one of the reasons they might not be pooping in their box is that they don’t feel they ‘own’ their space enough yet, so, as many posters here have suggested, I move them out of the cage and into the xpen area while I am doing my weekly deep clean of the cages. Unfortunately, my little buns run into the cage (to see what I’m doing? to check if I’m stealing their toys??) while I’m cleaning, so they make it impossible for me to clean only when they are out of the cage.

Any suggestions? Confine them in a bathroom  or something while I clean? I really need to take everything out of the cage to clean properly, so it’s a ninety-minute process each week. 

[JackRabbit]

Putting them in the bathroom while you clean sounds like a good idea. Rabbits are nosy, and you are in their house messing with their stuff . . . !

We put ours out for playtime while cleaning, but sometimes they just “know” what we’re going to do and they refuse to go! During those times, it takes two of us to clean (one to clean and the other to keep the bunnies from getting sucked up by the vac and to keep them from trying to put everything back in the right spot).

[Dee]

Lol- yeah, if you need to clean uninterrupted, the bunnies will probably need to be put elsewhere. I think they are just insatiatably nosy as well as somewhat territorial. Mine do do same thing, except they have no cage, just litter boxes and cardboard “houses”. They rush over, jump in and pot of the litterboxes and, only when I’m done cleaning and about to add fresh bedding, they take a nice pee to show me that it’s THEIR property and I am merely the maid. If I have a trash bag with dirty bedding in it, they jump on it, rip out out and scatter it everywhere. When I dare to vacuum, they are all over it, trying to chew the cord, sitting in the path of the vacuum… BunBun actually used to groom the old vacuum, which was kind of adorable. Here doesn’t feel the same affection for the new one though :p .
Good luck with your cleaning!

[LongEaredLions]

Putting them in the bathroom sounds fine, or you could temporarily disconnect the xpen while you are cleaning the cage and keep them in there.
Bunnies are nosy little buggers, aren’t they!

[Deleted User]

We ‘literally’ wait for Henry to take himself off to bed in our bedroom before touching his litter box, let alone his house, ha ha ha ha!
But bugga me! He always ‘knows’ and catches us out! DAM!
AFTER (even from another room) you can hear him tearing up the clean newspaper in his litter box and rearranging his house along with checking that WE haven’t stolen anything of HIS!

Good grief!

[gingerg]

Thank you, guys! I’m going to try LEL’s suggestion of detaching the xpen. Hopefully they’ll be distracted by the new set up and won’t notice me poking around in ‘their’ area. (Honestly, you’d think I was stealing their things and not scrubbing their potties!)

[Samicles]

My bun gets excited everytime I’m on the floor because he loves attention. So cleaning his cage can be a hassle sometimes. Maybe they want to play with you?

[Stickerbunny]

I have a bunny room and I lock my two out when I clean their room up. Otherwise, they follow me around, nibble every bit of hay I try to clean, try to tear open the garbage bag that has their dirty litter in it (HEY WHY YOU STEALING MY POOP), nip me on the butt when I bend over… ugh. Brats. It’s OK to stick em in another room while you clean.

[JackRabbit]

They do like to know where their poop is going Stickerbunny! When I pick up stray poops and put them in the litterboxes they look at me and then rush to the litterboxes to make sure they’re ok!?!? Moshi will even chin stray poops! What’s that about?!

[Deleted User]

Stickerbunny and JR – Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha……..

[Stickerbunny]

lol chinning poop… that’s funny. My two aren’t that bad. Powder will chew open a hole and pull all his poop back out though if I let him near the bag while I am trying to clean up.

[gingerg]

Hee hee hee! My babies don’t chin the poops, but they do look at me when I’m picking up all the little droppings on the rug in the xpen area, as if I’m messing with their carefully decorated living space.

Samicles, may be! My little girl at least is constantly crawling up into my lap, perhaps to play (or just looking for treats!).

[Author]

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