A quick litter box question :)

[bowser]

Hi everyone, I've been searching but I cant find an answer, so would appreciate some advice

Does litter trained mean bunny will not leave droppings in the house?

My bunny wees in his litter tray 99% of the time. He chose his spot, the corner of the laundy. It is filled with recycled paper pellets and straw. He seems to poop in there to. However he leaves loads of poop in the house, usually when he is asleep, none of them seem to be on purpose, he doesnt squat down and go - so is this standard? Should I somehow be trying to train him not to poop in his sleep?

He always leaves Cecotropes in his hutch and run too, but not in the house, but this could be due to feeding, as he gets feed his greensin his hutch in the morn and at bed time, but free run of the house in the evening.

 

[Krulala]

In my experience, yes and no.

We have 2 house rabbits with free reign of the house right now. They are about 2.5 years old and both are spayed/neutered. Their normal litter box habits are pretty good. All urine is always in the litter box. All piles of fecal pellets are always in the litter box. However, when they jump out of the litter box, there are a always a few of the pellets that escape. These get kicked around a lot if not cleaned up soon. So, if we don't vacuum every day, there ends up being about a 1 m poop zone around each litter box.

We do find occasional pellets in the odd corner around the house from time to time. If we go too long without cleaning the litter box, our male will sit outside the litter box where he can still reach his hay and leave a pile of pellets.

Unfortunately our female has gotten into the habit of smearing her cecotropes on hard floor surfaces, which we think is a problem resulting from a mixture of diet and obesity (separate thread in this forum "ceotrope smearing...everywhere"). Our male will nap in various places, but always cleans up his ceotropes when he wakes up.

We have had problems in the past with fecal pellets outside of the litter box, but there was always "a reason".

When we moved, the rabbits left pellets, usually in pairs all around the new house. From what we've read, it looks like they were marking their territory or at least making the new territory smell more familiar. That seemed to last a week or so, but I don't completely remember. Pretty much every time we've allowed them to enter a new area of the house, they do the same thing. Leave pellets all around for a while until they are used to the area. The same thing happened when they were newly litter box trained and we opened up new areas for them to see. But when they were younger, I think they kept leaving pellets around the house a lot longer than 1 week.

When they are mad or stressed, we've had additional litter box issues. My parents will come to visit us from time to time. They always bring their dog with them, which we are fearful to let near our rabbits (the dog is a terrier and has killed several wild animals including a rabbit). So, we lock our rabbits up in our master bedroom while the dog is here. During that time, the rabbits thump a lot, and seem pretty angry with us. They hold a grudge for a few days and pellets always seem to be left around the house afterwards. I think they smell the dog and leave behind something to remedy the offending smell.

There are a bunch of threads in here regarding the behavior issues that resolve after spaying/neutering, so I won't belabor the issue any further. But, many of us have found many litter box issues to resolve afterwards.

Good luck!

 

[bowser]

Thanks Krulala,

I wonder if he is marking his territory, we have 2 cats that he shares the lounge with.This morning the laundry (where he sleeps) is completely covered with poop, he doesn't like being put to bed much, so perhaps he is trying to prove a point.

He started spraying the other day too, and has sprayed me twice while in the kitchen. I'm going to take him to the vet this week to discuss neutering

 

[kirbyultra]

Yep, neutering may help you get him litter trained and should help curb that spraying

The cecals all over the place sounds to me more like a diet issue. Perhaps he is getting too much of something? Sweets/treats? Too many pellets can also cause excess cecals that go uneaten.

 

[Nancy McClelland]

Neutering helps, but we've only had one out of thirty two that didn't leave "pellets" around the house. That's why Shop-Vac's were invented. The main thing is that urine is either in the hutch or litter box, the rest I can vacuum.

 

[bowser]

O.K cool. I dont mind the pellets they are easy enough to pick up and I've managed to keep him of the couch now (where he urinates) for a couple of days - so things are looking up

He has started to spray though twice on me.

The cecals could be from too many greens? He is not really a fan of pellets, I give him 1/2 a cup for the day, and he never finishes them. He gets the occasional sweet (fruit) but very limited. I do give him a lot of 'Rabbit Salad' heaps of greens and he usually has the cecals after this.

Off to the vet today to discuss desexing