new member potty training 5 week old

[Mimsy]

Hi, really happy to of found this great site!  I’m giving a lot of background info since we are new to the board on Willows care.

We have a 5 week old, female lionhead, Willow, that just joined our family.  She will be a single bunny in the house, though she already seems really attached to our very old pitbull, Lump.  Lump has always been around small animals and our two birds ride around on his back and he allows the rats to run over him and even has been been bit by them and still is always a good boy.    Willow likes to stand on him as well so she can stand on his back, to better survey her world.

Willow is getting timothy grass and orchard as her main diet and then a bowl of pellets.   We are just familiarizing her to tiny amounts of fresh greens.

Her cage is relatively small right now, since we have her blocked off in the kitchen which doesn’t have space for anything large.   The door is always open, but I don’t want her to have access to carpeted area’s or area’s that we havent covered wires.   I have the two metal pens that will be used to make her main area once we get her trained.   The cage I’m using is our travel cage which is 2, by 2 by 2 feet, with a half shelf.  The floor is plastic.  We had fleece on the floor which after looking at the site, we removed since she kept peeing on it.  She has a large high back square ferret litter box that I put wood pellets in and then a layer of timothy grass.  She also has a little hanging basket of orchard grass that she can reach from the box.  There is still a cuddle cup in the cage, though she seems to like to sleep on the shelf.  We leave the cage open from morning till we go to bed at night.  

She seems to just not really care where she goes potty.  She just seems to mostly go where ever.   She will even come sit with us to get pets and then just pee and even sleep in the same spot.  Do you think it’s just an age thing?  She we be restricting her space in the kitchen more right now?  I hate to do that because she loves to run all over the place and she already wants to be in the rest of the house.

We got her from a farm that had her in a cage that was smaller  than the travel cage she is in and no litter box.  I’m guessing that being really young and not having a litter box might be why she has no clue yet?

I’m going to try and put her picture on here, it’s just the pic that her previous owner had.   She is growing like a weed currently.  Her dad is a half lionhead/half HUGE lop.  Her Mom is smaller than her and full lionhead.

[Sarita]

Well, this is typical for a 5 week old rabbit, they are very young to understand a routine. She is adorable.

You have to start with a routine with her. She doesn’t understand as is typical with ANY rabbit this age. Try not to expect too much but start at the beginning of litter training and go from there.

[Mimsy]

Thank you.

Do you think letting her have the whole kitchen is too much? Or do you think she is just young and will figure things out? Perhaps more litter boxes? We only have the one in the cage currently.

[LittlePuffyTail]

I think it definitely can’t hurt to give another litter box. And make sure to put lots of tasty hay in it. Buns love to eat and poop.

Your bun is super adorable.

[Author]

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