New bunny driving me nuts!

[yungplantmom]

Hi all! This is my first post. I’m a new bunny parent and I’m feeling like I’m failing.

I got Naomi about two weeks ago from a girl who had had her for about a week until her roommate didn’t want a rabbit in the house anymore. Before that Naomi was in a humane society. I’m not sure what type of lop eared rabbit she is, and I was told she was about a year old but I think she might be a little younger than that due to her personality. I believe she is fixed because when I got her her tummy had been shaved recently so I assume the humane society had her spayed. Overall she’s a very sweet girl, she loves to eat and doesn’t really give me any problems with chewing or serious aggression. 

Here are the problems. When I let her out of her cage she poops EVERYWHERE. Just trails of droppings all over my room. She pees anywhere where there is bare floor and she’s peed on my down comforter twice and on my couch. I just started to use the spray bottle tactic to when I catch her peeing but I don’t think it seems to be working. She’ll continue to pee even as I’m spraying water at her and yelling “No!” lol… I don’t know how else to discipline her, when I catch her in the act I can’t really herd her back into her cage because she’ll run under my bed or under the couch in my room. She also nips at me when I sit on the floor with her. Specifically she’ll nips at my legs, ankles and feet, and I’ll move them to make sure she’s not just nipping me to tell me to move but she’ll follow them and continue to nip HARD and they leave nasty heroin chic bruises. She doesn’t nip at my hands and lets me pet, stroke and groom her but she just loves to nip at the lower half of my body. 

Also worth mentioning, the cage I bought her is a wire bottom cage that let’s her business fall through to the litter box at the bottom so I bought a rug for her hocks so they won’t get sore. But do you think since she can’t like actually lay in her “stuff” it might be preventing her from litter box training?

Any tips/advice/consolation would be greatly appreciated!!

Miss Naomi 

[ivyfluff]

First off, congrats on the new bunny! Having a rabbit, I promise is one of the best things you can possibly do IF you are willing to throw in the time for her.

When I first got Gorgut (my rabbit) she would do the same all the time, she would just poop in my room and on my bed and I mean she was everywhere in my house. But it got to the point where she realized it was MY home and hers too, so she basically stopped and just started doing it all in a corner of her cage. So I think for now she is just marking that she is the bunny there. She might want a sense of feeling that maybe her last 2 owners didn’t give her. So I’d say just to have patience with her for a little longer.

As for the nipping, maybe she just has to bond with you before she starts to understand you aren’t okay with it. When I get nipped at by any of my bunnies I just squeal and they kind of back off. Maybe you can just lay on the floor with her and let her get used to you first. I’m not saying it won’t be difficult but with time rabbits really get affectionate with you and trust me its a great feeling to have them love you back. Good luck with your bunny!!

[litheandgraphic]

Welcome!

Naomi is very cute. She looks like she may be a French lop – at least in part.

As for your issues:

You’ll want to start her out with a much smaller enclosure of some kind rather than allowing her to free roam. What she’s doing is marking her territory – or at least trying to mark what she thinks is her territory.

Having said that, her current cage is too small. To solve both of these problems, I recommend getting an x-pen at least 36″ high, to allow her a contained area with enough room for exercise. When she has a small area that she can claim as her own, then she will be less inclined to do her business all over the house. To start litter training her, put a litterbox filled with rabbit-safe litter (eg. CareFresh, Yesterday’s News) and some hay into a corner – she may pick a corner that she likes best.

It would also be a good idea to find out for sure if she was spayed, or at least try to. Calling the humane society where she was previously or asking her previous owner just to know 100% is a good idea.

As for the ankle biting, the best thing you can do for right now is to make sure to wear something that covers your feet and ankles when you’re around her, and/or you can use bunny language to tell her you don’t like it. When she nips you, squeal loudly to let her know it hurts. You can also sit up and turn around away from her. This is bunny language for disapproval.

[Flopsie]

OMG she’s a cutie

It might be something to note that if she had just been spayed (evidenced by shaved tummy), then hormones still might be in her, it takes 4 to 6 weeks for them to be out of system so that may explain the droppings and urinating.

Just a thought

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