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Forum BEHAVIOR Litter training help: they pee and poo everywhere!

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    • Sol
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        A friend just had a litter, and I adopted two. They were born on 4Dec, and I brought them home last monday. I understand that’s quite early, but they were already weaned and eating well, and they settled in really quickly. They’re relaxed and tame (eating and drinking well, flops, binkies, approach humans who enter their pen).

        Their pen is in the kitchen (away from the stove!), next to the bathroom, and is about 2m x 1m. They have a cardboard box to hide in, a litterbox with a tray of hay (which is constantly refilled), and a shallow dish of water.

        Problem: They poo and pee all over their pen EXCEPT in their cardboard box (that includes in their litter tray). When I let them run around the house (supervised play time), they pee and poo everywhere too.

        I heard that rabbits choose one place to pee, but they’re peeing EVERYWHERE. I also heard they poop all over their cages to mark it as their own, but they’re pooping EVERYWHERE. Like, indiscriminately.

        I’ve tried wiping the areas they pee with vinegar, but it doesn’t help. I’ve placed their pee and poo back in their litter box and showed them. No change either.

        It’s only been six days since I got them, and they’re very young, so I guess that might contribute. Originally I was expecting to adopt adult rabbits who were already toilet trained from a shelter, so I’m pretty unprepared for this :/

        How can I toilet train them?


      • tobyluv
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        3310 posts Send Private Message

          It is very hard to have complete success with rabbits using a litter box if they have not been spayed or neutered. Yours are of course too young to be spayed or neutered. If you look at the BUNNY INFO link at the top of the page, there is a lot of good information, including litter box training, that might be helpful.

          You didn’t say what gender your rabbits are, but even if they are the same sex, they will need to be separated and housed apart before they are 12 weeks old. Even if they are the same sex and there is no danger of litters, they should be separated. And some people have thought or been told they have the same sex rabbits, then they are surprised by a litter a few weeks later. Even vest can sometimes get the gender wrong.

          When rabbits reach puberty and the hormones come flooding in, aggression can come with them, which can lead to fighting. Rabbits can severely injure each other if they fight. Puberty usually occurs around the 3-4 month mark, so they have to be kept in separate housing before that time. After their surgeries and a few weeks recuperation, they can be re-bonded.


        • Bam
          Moderator
          16836 posts Send Private Message

            They are very young still, if they were born Dec 4. Ideally they should’ve stayed a bit longer with their mummy, but the most important thing is of course that they were weaned and eating properly on their own.

            Very young rabbits often need a more confined space than a whole house to roam free in. If they have a smaller area, they learn good litter habits more easy.

            You are doinmg what you’re supposed to do: put poop back in the litterbox, put stuff they’ve peed on in the litter-box. Repeat and repeat. Give them a smaller exercise area, and put a box there as well as in the cage. Exercise is of course really important for them, so they shouldn’t be shut into the pen at all times. Just make it smaller. Bunnies like to choose their toiletting spots themselves, so placing the litterbox where the buns have already peed is often very successful. They don’t see it as they go in the box, they see it as they go in a spot. That’s why you must move a litter-trained bunny’s litter-box very gradually, over days or weeks if you must move it to a new spot, or the bun will just keep going where the box used to be.

            I hope they’ll soon learn!

            ETA: I completely agree with what Tobyluv says about separating them and have them de-sexed. 


          • Krista
            Participant
            59 posts Send Private Message

              Hmm:/ I was going to ask if you put their food in there but you have. How big is the box? And it is in the corner right? Bilbo has a large cat litter box (he did have a corner litter box for rabbits but it was too small and he would miss it sometimes). Bilbo picked up on litter box training right away (he was not fixed still isn’t because his appointment is at end of January) and he had no prior training. The receptionist at Bilbo’s vet has a 3 year old Holland lop doe that has not been fixed and she is litter box trained and very good at using it no peeing outside it or anything. From the sound of it they may just be having territorial wars with each other? Like when dogs go mark an area and another dog walks up and does the same thing like “that’s mine”. Try seperating them and see what happens:3

              Oh also to double check their genders (or check them at all) there are several useful sexing resources on Google. It isn’t hard I accidentally checked Bilbo’s by holding him up and pulling back his tail a little bit (I was cleaning his butt at the time because he had poop stuck to it) and something will pop out and depending on the look will help you tell. http://www.raising-rabbits.com/sexing-rabbits.html


            • Jessica
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                They are still very young, it’s gonna take a little bit for them to figure it out. According to my breeder buns don’t start showing litter box habits until about 6 weeks. As Bam said give them a smaller space, then let them pick where they are going to potty and put your litter pan there. When I brought my girl home I didn’t giver her a litter box until she had been home 3 days. She was almost 9 weeks when I brought her home, and then I placed her pan in the corner that she had been consistently peeing in


              • Vane
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                  I’m not really sure how old my bunny was when i got her but she was less than 2 months old and pretty small. She has free roam of the house so we had to litter train her quickly. Try to find the spot that they pee in the most and place their litter box there. what worked for me was that every time we saw that she was about to pee or she started to poop we would take her to her litter box and give her a small piece of treat.You do have to keep an eye out and it could help if you just confined them to a smaller area for now. Keep putting everything in their litter box. And even though they can be litter trained before being spayed or neutered the second that the hormones kick in all the training goes out the window so make sure to have them fixed. My bunny had great toilet manners but when the hormones happened she claimed a spot on the couch and would pee there all the time and and poop and lay on it so she smelled really bad. She also would bite anyone that tried to sit there so get them fixed when they are older. Good luck.

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              Forum BEHAVIOR Litter training help: they pee and poo everywhere!