HELP with Litter Training!!

[Melissa]

Hello fellow Bunny Lovers!!  I love my new boys and I’m doing my best to convince my husband that I didn’t lose my mind when I got them but the peeing and pooping everywhere is making my husband very frustrated at my decision.   I obviously don’t want to keep them penned up all day in a cage so I give them some free space and the pee and poop everywhere…..litter box…and outside litter box.  I’ve checked forums here and it says age is a key in training….should I just accept that I won’t be able to train them until they are much older then now?  And how best can I handle the current situation?  Do I keep them in their cage and only allow them limited and controlled free time where they can be somewhere without risk to the carpet?  Years ago we had a rabbit that someone gave us and that rabbit had always been a outdoors hutch rabbit but when we brought him into a part of our house he went right to using a litter box with few accidents…now he was two plus years old at the time but I thought it was amazing how he took to the litter box having never using one before.  Any help or advice you can offer would be greatly appreciated!!! 

[Sarita]

How old are they?

[The Law Bun]

So with age being out of the question, here are some definite tips I used on my new bunny that helped her really take to her litter box.

1) Spay/Neuter as soon as your vet will let you. This is the number one piece of advice you will get from everyone on this forum. Especially for male rabbits who love to spray urine and claim territory. By reducing that hormonal urge, you are very likely to reduce the chance he urinates outside the box and poos outside the box.
2) Place the food in the litter box itself or on a rack above. I chose to use a hay rack since it keeps the hay nice and tidy and prevent a lot of hay waste that other people complain of on these forums.
3) Although you may not want to, you should DEFINITELY reduce their run space and outside space. Although rabbits do need out of cage time, they will be fine the first week. When I first got Lilith she remained in her cage (only first floor no access to second) for 2 entire days. I think this also helped her acclimate her to my household. After those 2 days, I constructed a 4×4 pen (front yard attached to her NIC cage) that I would let her run around in for a few hours at a time. From there I would adjust her space depending on the quality of her litter habits. Within 2 weeks she is now pretty much perfect.
4) Understand they are rabbits, there will be accidents. Although Lilith is nearly perfect I will find like 1 stray poo a day where she decided to sleep and decided not to get up I suppose haha. So yes, there will be accidents, and your husband should understand that a few stray poops is really no big deal, just a majority of them need to be in the box as well as all of the urine. Though, Lilith has yet to ever pee outside her box.

Good Luck! And yes age will affect ability to litter train, but its not unfeasible. Lilith just turned four months yesterday

[Anne's animals]

when i got my bunny she would poop by her food..i put her bowl in her litter box and that help a lot.is your bunnies spayed or neutered? try put all of the poops in the litter box. wipe the pee with a paper towel and put that is their litter box.that way,their know its ok to go potty in their..

good luck!!!

[Giggles]

I adopted my bun at 8 weeks, and about two weeks later, he’s pretty well litter trained. Of course, his space was limited to my bedroom, where his cage is also. He’s given free range without my bedroom whenever I’m home.

It was important that he associated his cage as his home. Once he picked a corner in his cage, I just placed the box there, and voila! He’s been using it consistently. Of course, there are the occasional stray poos, but that’s normal. He’s about 3.5 months now, and I’m waiting to get him neutered before he develops any of that teenage-angst that makes him want to mark his territory everywhere or goes into destructo bunny mode. Heh.

The internet says it’s easier to litter train an older bunny, but don’t lose heart. I managed to litter train my baby bun — all while working a full-time job and traveling every other weekend. So, yes, it’s possible to litter train young bunnies. It just requires patience and diligence.

[Melissa]

I got them Easter Weekend and was told they were between 8-10 weeks old. I took them to the vet the end of April and their testicles have not yet descended so we could not neuter them yet but they are both male. I had let them have free run in our family room and they were just pooping places or so I thought they were peeing but my carpet was so dark I couldn’t see if unless I “felt” it. I’m not giving up on them, I love them and am committed to working at it until we get it down better. I think once they get a bit older and neutered it will get better….at least I hope.

[kirstyol]

If you have two unnutered males is it possible that they are both territory marking? Bramble was litter trained really quickly but he is a lone bun so didn’t have another bun competing to mark the territory. Bramble also couldn’t be neutered right away because his testicles didn’t descend (we thought he was a girl actually) he was eventually done at 22 weeks old. Lots of people say litter training improves after a neuter, I have no first hand experience with this as Bramble was great from the beginning but lots of people say it makes a huge difference, especially if you have two buns.

[gingerg]

Melissa, I’d try limiting their space a bit more until they master the litter box. When I got my pair of lops, who were also 8 weeks old at the time, I hooked up a standard doggie exercise pen to the outside of their cage, which is in my living room. I started them out with about a four foot by four foot play space, and I only let them out into the play space when I was home (about 3-4 hours a night). My rabbits figured out the pee issue almost immediately (in about two weeks). They were slower on the poos, so I put a second litter box in the play area (same design as the one in the cage) and would move it around to whatever corner they seemed to favor, though for some time it was like they just pooped wherever they felt like. I kept going into the play area and moving their poops into the litterboxes, hoping they’d get the idea. It took a while!

Finally, when they were almost always pooping in one of the litter boxes, I expanded the play area (using the exercise pen to block off about a third of the living room for their use, and monitored them, to see if they would maintain their good litter habits. This went on for a few months. They were neutered/spayed by the time I thought they were ready to have the full living room space. Now they have both the living room and the kitchen to roam, and they hardly ever miss the litter box (only occasional stray poops).

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