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BUNNY 911 – If your rabbit hasn’t eaten or pooped in 12-24 hours, call a vet immediately!  Don’t have a vet? Check out VET RESOURCES 

The subject of intentional breeding or meat rabbits is prohibited. The answers provided on this board are for general guideline purposes only. The information is not intended to diagnose or treat your pet.  It is your responsibility to assess the information being given and seek professional advice/second opinion from your veterinarian and/or qualified behaviorist.

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Forum BEHAVIOR Litter training problems – Pee

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    • Yilina
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      246 posts Send Private Message

        Hi guys!

        My hubby and I adopted a male 1 year old dwarf bunny 4 weeks ago. He is cute as a button, sweet and loves cuddles, purring and running around like a mad . We are in love with him already. We got him from a family that couldn’t take care of him anymore. He hasn’t been spayed and was kept in his cage all the time but for 2 hours a day (the family told us they had cats and dogs running free inside the house and didn’t want the rabbit to get hurt). He didn’t have a litter box and used a section of his cage to pee/poo (about 30% of the cage).

        We have taken him to the vet and he is in perfect health. We don’t have any pets and we have him free in my hubby’s office during the day (he is there with him most of the day) and lock him in his cage at night. Now, we have been trying to litter train him for about 3 weeks but we are having a few issues. He has a litter box inside his cage now, but only uses it when he is in there. At the beginning he pooed and peed in his favourite corner (under a table).

        We decided to lock him in his cage for 1 hour during his lunch time and 1 hour during his dinner time and it works: he poos in his box with very few “mistakes”. However, he always pees outside (only pee, he has never sprayed), in the office floor, during the day (he pees in his litter box at night). When he does, we soak a paper with his pee, put the paper in his litter box and clean the stain with vinegar. However, he keeps doing it.

        We have noticed he never goes in his cage on his own but for those 2 feeding times and at night.  He seems to be scared of his cage; he even trembles when we lock him, poor thing. We aim to have him free in the future, but it is not possible now.  Maybe he is scared of it and that is why, even if he wants to pee in his box (which is inside his cage), he pees outside?

        We have read everywhere spaying him will help and we do want to do it. However, we live in isolated island and, even if the vets here are lovely, none of them is specialised in rabbits or exotic animals, just cats and dog. They told us they can spay him alright, but we are a bit scared about it as all websites recommend to have this surgery done by a specialised rabbit vet.

        Have any of you had a similar issue with litter training? Any advice on this? Are we doing something wrong?

        Hugs!

         Yilina


      • sarahthegemini
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          I’m afraid I can’t offer much advice regarding the peeing but I did have a thought about his fear of his cage – If he only had 2 hours free time per day before you got him, perhaps he is scared to go in his cage on his own (for anything, to pee even) because he thinks he’ll be locked away for ages? Perhaps you could try luring him into his cage, giving him a treat but then letting him come back out again. That way he might associate his cage with treats and he’ll realise that if he goes in his cage, he can come back out.  


        • tobyluv
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            Getting your bunny neutered should help with his litter box habits. It can be difficult to fully litter box train a rabbit that hasn’t been spayed or neutered. Sometimes, you have to travel outside your area to find a rabbit savvy vet. I’ve seen posts here before from people that travel an hour or two to go to a good rabbit vet. You mentioned that you live on an island. Do you think that there might be some exotic vets not too far away if you traveled off the island? If the vet you are currently seeing does see rabbits on a regular basis and has successfully performed surgery on a number of them, then they should be qualified to do the surgery. But if you don’t feel fully confident in them, you may want to wait and see what other vet you can find.

            Does his cage have a wire floor or some slippery floor, or is it placed near anything that could frighten him, like an appliance that makes a noise? It may be as Sarah said, that he is afraid he will be shut up all the time if he goes in his cage. That behavior may change as he settles in and becomes more comfortable with you and sees that he has free range most of the time. Do you have a water bowl for him only in the cage, or does he also have one in the office room? Where do you keep his hay? If the only place that he has water and hay is in his cage, maybe that would make him go in by himself whenever he is hungry or thirsty. Rabbits need to have access to hay and water 24 hours a day, but if it is out in the room, he would have no reason to go into his cage during the day.

            Also, Sarah already mentioned treats. If he has a favorite fruit or veggie, maybe you could feed that to him only after luring him into the cage, in the hope that he would associate the cage with good things.


          • Yilina
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              Thank you all, you are so helpful! <3<3<3<3

              Thank you @tobyluv! To answer your question, yes, all his food, water and hay are inside the cage, we did this to “force” him to get into his cage, but still he only goes there during feeding times (lunch and dinner). If we put his food and hay outside he will poo outside too. The cage is a normal plastic bottom one and it is nowhere near something that could frighten him, actually, he lays next to it during the day/sleeping time.

              About spaying, we live in Reunion island, in Africa, (it is a French territory, kind of like Hawaii that belongs to the USA). So no chance of finding a rabbit vet even if we fly to another island. I wouldn’t mind travelling if it meant getting good rabbit care. The vet we go to has a direct link to an exotic vet in mainland France that he gets advise from; that’s why we chose him . Yes, I should ask him if he has experience spaying rabbits (people here have rabbits, but they are very careless with their animals and very few are spayed or go to the vet ever). But if he doesn’t, is it best to have him spayed by a non-specialised vet or not to spay him at all? :S. Do any of you have successful experience with non-rabbit vets?

              Thank you for all your advice about making him feel comfy in his cage. We will definitely use the “luring with treats” trick that @sarahthegemini proposed. Thank you! We have bought him a bigger cage (the one he has now is only 70 cm long) with a “hidden” area and we will be introducing it to him slowly (it is already inside the room for him to get used to seeing it). Hopefully, he won’t link this new cage with the probably scary experiences of his past.

              When we got him, he trembled non-stop for the first 24 hours straight (he trembled so much with his former owner that he thought it was because he was cold –Reunion is the tropics and temperatures never drop below 16C/60F-, so I honestly think it was because he was scared not the “cold”). He is doing much better now but he is a very trembling-prone rabbit (if that’s even a word). He will come to us, ask for petting, lay down looking completely relaxed and start purring, and he will do all this while trembling. It is very strange, trembling is a sign of distress, but purring means happiness. We asked the vet but he says it is normal during the first weeks. We really hope he will feel better soon, poor baby.

              Hugs!


            • sarahthegemini
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                I think getting him a new cage was a brilliant idea! Feed him lots of treats in it and he’ll see that his cage is a happy place and he’ll make the connection that new cage = positive experiences. It’s wonderful that you’ve essentially rescued him from a poor home and are able to give him a lovely new, safe and enriched home. It’ll just take him a while to realise that the past is the past

                About neutering – I probably wouldn’t risk getting him neutered by a vet that has NO experience with rabbits but if he has some (successful) experience, then I would go for it.


              • Yilina
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                246 posts Send Private Message

                  Thank you all, you are so helpful, I really don’t know what I would do without this community. Today he peed 3 times outside, aghhh!

                  As for the treats, we are still finding what he likes. He used to eat that awful muesli, and we slowly transitioned him to hay, pellets and arugula/rocket (we are planing on introducing new safe veggies soon). Funny thing, he doesn’t seem to be very food-driven, like other rabbits I have seen. He much prefers exploring the house or being pet -he’ll ignore food for the other 2 things. He even wants to be pet when he is in his cage (his territory).

                  Any safe treats suggestions (the supermakerts don’t sell bunny treats here)?


                • Ellie from The Netherlands
                  Participant
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                    These are some nice snacks that my dwarf bunny enjoys. Be careful not to over-feed dwarfs, because they’re oh so small.
                    – Small piece of carrot, about 1 cm of a small carrot
                    – A raisin (don’t give more than 3 each day, because they’re very sugary and may upset his gut)
                    – A peeled sunflower seed (not more than 3)
                    – A small slice of fruit: apple (without pips, there are toxic!), banana, melon, they’ll love everything sweet


                  • sarahthegemini
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                      My bunnies really like sunflower petals as a treat. Rose petals are a good choice too, though mine aren’t big fans. Dandelion goes down well too! Or a small piece of carrot.


                    • Yilina
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                      246 posts Send Private Message

                        Thank you! I don’t think I can get sunflower petals or dandelion here, but I will try with apples and bananas.

                        He got into his new cage on his own accord yesterday (he explored it for a few minutes). Yeah!!

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                    Forum BEHAVIOR Litter training problems – Pee