Litter Box Issues

[angeelalaa]

Hello everyone!

I have a question about litter box training for my bunny, Bun Bun… I’ve had her for about two months now and in the beginning my boyfriend and I were unaware of the possibility of training a bunny to use a letter box so we were excited to try it out. At first, Bun Bun spent most of her time in her cage since she was still rather small and we would just let her out to play when we could supervise her. At this time she had her litter box in her cage and she used it very well with all of her pee in there and most of her poops (there were still some stray poops outside of it, but I figure that that’s normal). We set her little box up with newspaper on the bottom, some bedding, and hay, along with a hay feeder on the wall next to it.

However, recently, my boyfriend and I decided to expand her to an x-pen for her to have more room to play even when we can’t supervise her since and because she’s starting to grow more. The issue with this is that since we’ve set up the x-pen (it’s only been about 3 days since she’s had the pen) she no longer uses the litter box in her cage unless we lock her up in there for the night… Which is not what I wanted to do since I wanted her to have full run of the pen. She pees outside of her litter box in the pen and after a couple of hours she has a landmine of poops everywhere LOL

I have also moved her to my parent’s house for the weekend since my boyfriend and I went home for the weekend. Luckily my parents have a play pen for her to use while she’s here for her to play, but it’s the same issue… If not worse. I left her out to play over night in the pen with her cage open to her litter box, but when I woke up in the morning… so many poops.

I’m just unsure what to do at this point… So, I guess my question is… Will this behavior ever stop? Is it because the pen is new to her? Should I have a second littler box?

Also, she is only about 3 months old and is not fixed yet. Does age also play a factor in her little box habits? I just don’t understand why she used it so well in her cage, but is failing to use it in her pen. I really appreciate any help you guys can give me! Thank you! <3

[Shannon]

Angeelalaa,
It may help after she is fixed. It sounds like she is marking. Our rabbit did this too. Pretty much he wasn’t willing to go outside of his cage when locked into it he would ALWAYS use his litter box. So I would suggest letting him into the x-pen when you are around to supervise. If he goes outside of a box you can either pick the bun up and place them in the box. We did this and then would keep our hand on his back (not forcefully) to keep him in the box for a few minutes. If this isn’t your deal after an accident you can wrangle her into the cage. Eventually they will get the picture. Then you can start to let them out a little more often.

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