Litter Training Tips?

[Mr.OliverJames]

I just adopted a 6 year old netherland dwarf from a rabbit rescue (Shout out to the wonderful people at New Moon Rabbit Rescue in Ottawa!). According to the shelter, he was litter trained, but I am having a difficult time re-training him. I set up several litter boxes where I noticed him pooping and urinating, but he won't use the boxes. He seems to not have one designated spot, and even goes on his toys and his hay. I am using the same litter that he was used to, and put some hay in the boxes to attract him there, but no luck. He has free reign in one room, so I try to watch him and when I notice him lifting his tail, or if he goes on the floor, I put him in the litter box, but he kicks and hops away. He usually has no problem being picked up, but he seems to have an aversion to his boxes.

Any suggestions?

 

[Watermelons]

Hi and welcome to the forum.
Litter training is a very common topic here. If you do a forum search for it you will find tonnnns of topics that may give you some ideas. The search bar is in the top left corner.
Maybe you can tell us more about your bunnys set up and daily routine? Do you have a cage? Shavings bedding litter used? Etc.... Time out?

 

[lyndym]

Congrats on your new bun! And good for you for going the rescue route.

He's probably still technically litter trained, just having some trouble in his new home. You say he has his own room, which is awesome, but I would definitely start him in a smaller area first. If you have an exercise pen, you could easily corner off a portion of the room to a small-medium sized space. I would put the litter box in the corner of that space. Expand the space by a little once he consistently uses his box perfectly and add another box, but keep the first in the same corner. Eventually get him to use the entire room in this way. If he ends up not using a litter box after you've expanded the area, reduce the size of the pen again.

If he goes on the floor, don't scold him and force him into the litter box - he will end up associating the box as punishment and hate being in there! Really treating his box and his areas as his own helps, and being put back in a pen/cage or placed in the litter box constantly might also cause him to "mark" with poop or urine outside of his box. While getting him to adjust to his new home, just try and shoo him wherever you want him to go, that way it's more of "his choice" to go into box or pen/cage.

Another thing I did was place treats/veggies directly in the litter box to reinforce the positive idea of the box. I also got a food crock that fastened to the side of the cage so my buns ate pellets while being in their box and could poop as they were eating. It broke soon after, and I changed back to a regular food bowl, but somehow they were really good at using their box after that!

Hope that helps, good luck! Also, any pics of your little guy?