Litter training difficulities? Need help!

Hi everyone,

I'm new to this forum (just signed up like, 5 mins ago!), so I apologize if this is in the wrong category!

Anyhow, I have a new bunny, she is 6 months old. I've have her for about 3 weeks, and litter training is NOT going well!

I read before I got my bunny that rabbits are easily litter trained, but my bunny just doesn't get it. She doesn't even chose a part of her cage to do her potty business.

I've tried placing all her poops in her litter box, but it doesn't help one bit.

Does anyone have any ideas of what I could do to help her learn?! It's so frustrating! I want her to have more freedom and time out of her cage, but it's really annoying picking up after her every few minutes.

I'm considering spaying her at the end of the year. Does this greatly increase the chances of her learning to use a litter box?

If anyone has any tips, please let me know! Thanks

Are you talking about her just not pooping in her litter box, or is she not peeing in there either? Rabbits are generally considered litter trained if the pee consistantly in the litter box. Poop is a whole different matter. Some unaltered rabbits will take to it naturally, but most don't. Rabbits use their poop to mark their territory. So because your rabbit is pretty new, she is going to be doing a lot of poop markiing in the beginning. Sometimes after a rabbit has settled in to it's new home, it will let up on the poop marking, and start doing more of it in it's litter box. But often it really takes get the rabbit neutered/spayed for the litter habits to really improve, and for the poop marking to not be so bad. No guarantees, but more often than not, rabbits get much better about pooping in their litter box once they are fixed. They may still leave a few poops around, but it's not nearly as bad as when the rabbit is hormonal. A trick you can use until your rabbit gets spayed, put a hay rack right above the litter box, or put a pile of hay in a corner of the litter box, so your rabbit has to sit in the litter box while she eats hay, then she will just do some of her pooping while she's in there.

Spaying can help with litter habits. Buns will often mark their territory and will use their poops to mark not just urine. Is she peeing in the litter box? It is rare for a bun to get all poops in a litter box. My bun took just a few days to start peeing only in the litter box. He continued to poop a lot outside of it for about a month. Now some days there is no poop outside the box, other days maybe five poos. If a bun pees only in the litter box they are considered litter trained.

You can also soak a paper towel in any pee outside the litter box and then place the paper towel in the litter box. If you already haven't done so, you can limit her space for a time until she starts getting the hang of it. Once she does you may also find it helpful to have more than one litter box available to her depending on the size of the space.

She's old enough to be spayed now. The sooner, the better. There's no benefit to waiting. It will only drag out the frustration for you and possibly cause her behavior to become ingrained habit.

She also might not like the litter your using! I tried a few different litters until Chive, my little bun, would actually start using the litter box.