HELP --REINTRODUCING RABBITS BACK INTO OUR HOUSE =(

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Richard0600

Richard0600

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Feb 5, 2008
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Location
Melbourne, , Australia
My girlfriend and I have two rabbits, dumbo and latte for approx. 7-8 months now. They are both females minilops, and are quite healthy. Latte has been spayed and as for dumbo, due to a recent surgery we decided to put it off till this coming march. Well recently I had my winter break(we're both students) so we left our rabbits with our aunt who took wonderful care of them for us. But when we brought them back to our apartment (2 months later) we have discovered that they have become extremely naughty. I understand this may be because they haven't been let out of their cage for 2 months and may be a little restless but for the past 4 days they have been pooing in mass quantities all over the house as well as peeing all over the carpet, in their pipe and everything they basically can reach. Bear in mind that we have had the rabbits for a good 5 months where they ran around the apartment all day long prior to the winter break. They have also developed a new tendency to dig all the bedding out of their cage. Nor do they respond to their names or to us rustling their food bowl (when you use to rustle their food bowl they would come running back into the cage.) They also have a new tendency to hump each other and I understand this is because they are both females, and that they are trying to determine whose in charge. They are extremely naughty and quite frankly at the moment scrubbing the pee smell out of the carpet is becoming very annoying. It's like we have come home to completely different rabbits. We have decided to stop letting them out until we can find a solution can you please help us!

P.S -- i do believe thateven though latte pee's here and there itsdumbo thats causing most of the damage and i do realise i need to spay her ASAP..but in the mean time is there anything anyone can tell us that might improve our situation a little...
 
Unfortunately, since they have been locked in their cages for two months....they are going to be a little naughty. If you were locked in your bedroom for 2 months with no exercise and little attention, you would be a little loopy too :p.

All the peeing and pooing is them "marking" the house as "theirs". Try putting them on a floor that is not carpet, like the kitchen. Use a baby gate or NIC panels to keep them in.

Have the one female spayed as soon as you can, then work on bonding.


One thing you do not want to do, is continue to keep them locked in their cages. It's very unfair for rabbits to stay in their cages for that long. Rabbits should have DAILY out time 2+ hours a day.

Will your rabbits be returning to your aunt when school starts again or will they be staying with you in your apartment?




Give the bunnies time, they have a lot of energy to blow ;).



 
its just we had no other choice =( it we really didnt want it to be like that either but we both had to leave the country(because we study abroad) to go back home for the holidays...but when we are back in college they get plenty of running time =) i mean both me and my gf have different schedules so they're pretty much running around the apartment or sleeping in their tube for at least 15 hours a day...(we only put them back in the cage at night)
 
That is great, Richard (I assume that is your name) :)! Any bun would be lucky to have 15 hours of run time! Welcome to the forum, by the way :biggrin2:!


Try out just putting them in an area without carpet and see how that works for you. Put out a lot of litter boxes. I know it is a pain in the tush to clean up bunny pee on the floor, but it would be much easier to just whipe it up, rather than scrub it out of the carpet.

That reminds me, are they litter box trained?

I just reread your first post. I thought that you went off to college and left the bunnies behind with your aunt, not went on winter break from college. Sorry about that!




p.s....Where is your location and could you add it to your profile?
 
well we took ur advice and left them to the bathroom area(where its all tiles) and they had a field day with the pee...but i mean at least we can wipe it..we scheduled dumbo's spaying for monday so hopefully everything will return to normal soon... As for litter train we never really had to.. i mean they've been allowd to run around the apartment ever since we got them...and they love it =)...it was a hassle to make our apartment rabbit safe... we had to hide all our cables after we discovered that they loved to chew on the rubber coating..latte destroyed my TV cable my phone wire and lots more before we brought her to get spayed... and when they were little they loved to hide under the couch which i eventually boarded up because it was very hard to clean the poo from under there...haha but in the end it was all worth it...we never really had any problems with them peeing on the carpet...they tend to keep the pee to their cage...of course every now and then there will be an accident but that was like once every 2 months? and in terms of poo they mainlypoo wherever they want they tend to keep the wet ones in the cage..so its all good...i dont mind picking them up cause there arent that many..but lately its just pee and poo everywhere!
 
Hi Richard your babies look adorable in your avitar. I love the names especially Dumbo.

Do you have more pictures of the? I'd love to see them.

Susan:)
 
Aww bless them, they're probably just happy to get their freedom back! When they've settled down, and Dumbo is spayed, they'll probably be much easier to litter train- ours were very quick to learn after their spay.

Is there any way you could attach a pen to their cage, so that they have room to exercise even when they have to be shut away? Then maybe you could let them out of that into the whole apartment aswell for a time every day... You could put maybe a cut of linoelum under the pen to save the floor, and you could easily make a pen out of some NIC grids tied together... That might run off a bit more of their enegry even when you can't let them out altogether... Also, it might help them to litter train easier, if they get used to a smaller (although not too small!) space first...

15 hours a day is at least what our buns get too, it's so nice having them run around all over the place, isn't it?

I agree with Susan too, they look very cute! More pictures please! :D
 
I got a pen in order to create a larger "yard" for my bun, Nibbles, not long after i adopted her - and this works beautifully as a place for her to stay when I'm asleep, out, or in another part of the house where I can't have her with me (not bun-proofed). it seems to be a win-win situation, in that I can be confident that she's safe (and has plenty to keep her occupied), while she gets a fairly large space to call her own at all times. In fact, she often goes back inside "her" part of the room to hang out - during her free run time.

Sounds like yours would really benefit from this kind of setup, and you and your gf could have some peace of mind about them, too. :)
 
o no! i called our vet and shes currently in malaysia doing relief work...and i don't really trust my rabbits with anyone else..guess im gonna have to deal with dumbo for another 2 weeks... she doesn't get back till feb 21st.. anyways you wanted more photos of dumbo and latte so here they are...

This is when they were young =)
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more recent photos:
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DSC01915.jpg

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I agree with the idea of attaching a pen to their cage so they have an area to move around in during this transition period back to your home and before the spay. I have a girl who pees everywhere and the room they live in is carpeted. I bought a really cheap vinyl tablecloth from the dollar store and layed in down in the run area and set the pen on top of it so they wouldn't dig at it and move it. That's worked great. Also, I agree that they are probably doing a lot of marking right now reclaiming everything as "theirs" :) They are really, really cute!
 
well here is an update on the bunnies =) i spent the last couple of days scrubbing pee out of the carpet haha...our apartment isnt very big and the whole place is carpetted..except for the kitchen and bathroom..and since that isnt a lot of space to run..i decided to just let them continue with what they are doing in the hopes that they will get better...

well they have! instead of 5 pee stains a day its down to 2 =) i managed to make 3 makeshift litterboxes out of cardboard boxes bedding and shredded paper and it works great!

what i did was get a decent size medium box cut two holes for them to enter and exit and filled it with bedding and shredded paper...i noticed that both dumbo and latte love to dig in the box as well as mark it with their pee and poo..so it definetly helps if anyone has similar problems with digging/peeing u should definetly give it a try....

anyways 1 more week till dumbo gets spayed im sure latte's excited im sure she is sick of being humped every couple of days...it use to be the other way around before we spayed her than 2 weeks after the hormones in latte died down dumbo had a run at being on top =) anyways ill keep u guys posted...but at the moment it seems to be getting better
 
That is such great news, Richard :). Sounds like the ladies and going to be great little house bunnies once they have fully decided to pee in the litter boxes.

:biggrin2: Keep us updated on Dumbo's spay.
 
Update---

Well Dumbo is finally spayed =) yay! but the problem is she isnt eating which means its back to force feeding her critical care. The vet gave us some pain killers for her so everyday me and my girlfriend have to wrap dumbo up in a towel...only exposing her head we have to force feed her critical care with a syringe. its terrible i know but it has to be done, she eats a little bit of hay here and there but its just not enough...

The vet recommended that we seperate them for at least a week untill the stitches come out so in the mean time latte has become the "dominant" female in the cage she doesn't seem to get along with dumbo anymore. So i'm afraid we are going to have to rebond them..once again! this is the 2nd time and it really sucks... but ive learned a couple of tricks from reading forums and asking for advice.

*A tip on rebonding rabbits --- just put both of them in a small box/container where they are forced to be together...and take them for a car ride basically the more turns the better. the car ride forces them to be scared together, my vet suggested this a while back and it works miracles, it always seems to work after 1 or 2 times.*

Of course there is always the humping that cant be avoided...what I suggest is to just let them do there thing usually the rabbits are trying to decide whose the alpha female or male.. if they are both spayed/neutered it usually doesnt lead to biting just give them plenty of space to determine whose the alpha...make sure it doesn't happen in the cage because if you dont give them enough room to hide/run away the rabbit that's being humped becomes really stressed out... so just give them plenty of running room to do their thing...
 
Congrats on Dumbo's spay! When was it done? If today, that may be why she isn't eating. It's okay if she's not just for a day or so. She should nibble though, which is good. What pain meds did she get?

Sometimes after one is neutered/spayed, just the smell from the dr's office is enough for them to become unbonded, so it may have happened anyway, if that's at all comforting;). The little box and drive idea is a great one and it works lots of times! Good Luck with getting them rebonded.

They are both so very cute!
 
ummm the pain med the vet gave me was called Metacam, the spaying was done 3 days ago... it starting to worry me because when i spayed latte it only took her a day before she started to eat again..nor did she have to go on pain meds at all... dumbo doesn't seem to eat her dry food at all, she only nibbles on some hay here and there thats why we've been force feeding her critical care twice a day... it's apparently really concentrated food so I mean I hope she gets better soon... it's not fun to have to force feed your rabbit food that she doesn't want to eat. We have to wrap her in a towel to restrict her from moving so that we can syringe feed her critical care and you can tell she really hates it... but at the moment there is really nothing we can do till she gets better... does anyone have any suggestions?
 
Does she eat veggies? If so, you can give her some of her favourites, I soaked mine in water when Chalk wasn't eating much after her spay, which seemed to work. Also, if she doesn't want to move too much, put them down right in front of her so she doesn't have to move to eat.

You might want to post over in the infirmary for a few more suggestions, as more people might notice it over there...

Good luck, and poor Dumbo, hope she's feeling better soon! :)
 
How is she today? Is her eating any better? She should be eating by now. If she was only given Metacam, she's probably been in pain. The vet should have sent some home with you, it doesn't even last as long as they say it does:(.

Have you called the vet about her not eating? You could give her some baby food, syringed like banana. You can also make a slurry with the pellets and syringe that to her if she'll take it.
 
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