Litter trained but peeing on the floor

Advertise with us
Shop deals on ebay
shop deals on amazon
Love your rabbit
Rabbits Online Forum

Help Support Rabbits Online Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
Zicheri

Zicheri

Well-Known Member
Joined
Apr 30, 2010
Messages
48
Reaction score
1
Location
Somerville, Massachusetts, USA
My 5 year old Flemish Giant has recently started to pee on the floor. I think about 4 times since Friday (5 days). Previously he has NEVER peed outside of his litter box.

It has been very hot, and his AC was set to 78 but I have reduced it down to 74. He's drinking plenty of water, eating plenty (have moved to mostly greens and hardly any pellets since Friday), and even did a flop last night.

He is currently molting, but haven't seen anything strange with his stools.

I'm going to call the vet tonight and get him in, but any thoughts on this? How likely is this the heat vs. diabetes vs. UTI? Could it be anything else?
 
Did you recently clean the area? Could he be marking territory? Or did you do anything that might have made him upset with you? I know my bun would go on the floor right outside his cage if I did anything he didn't like
 
Didn't recently clean or piss him off.

After talking to the vet yesterday, I took a sample of his urine to bring in today. They told me to "put a ladle under him" to collect it, which I laughed at. If you ever need to collect rabbit urine for the vet, I recommend emptying the litter box and putting it at a slight angle (I propped his up on some rolled up dish towels). He hopped in, peed, and hopped out without getting urine all over himself. I collected it with a syringe, but could have just poured it into a tupperware container if I had to.

In any case, the urine is a milky yellow, which I'm assuming means he has a UTI. Hopefully he doesn't have any calcium build-up in his bladder, since that could be an expensive surgery.

I'll update this later for anyone else experiencing similar things.
 
My rabbits are litter trained, but they also will occasionally go outside the box. Normally, they do this if they are mad at me for something, but most often if the box isn't clean. They never use it if there's a large amount of bunny crap in it. This may be your problem. If not, I would see what happens in a day or so, and then take him to the vet
 
Yeah - I would understand that if the box was dirtier than normal, but one of the times he peed on the floor was less than 24 hours from cleaning it.

Also - in 5 years he has never, ever, ever peed outside his box. (And once I forgot about cleaning it for almost a week - oops!)

I recently decreased pellets and increased greens. I mostly feed him dandelion greens, and it turns out that those are decently high in calcium. All signs are pointing to too much calcium and a potential UTI. Sounds like this is something you should get your bun in to the vet early, as bladder stones can develop that require surgery to remove.
 
Winston had an x-ray yesterday to check for crystals in his bladder. Thankfully, that came back totally normal. So no surgery required - yay!

His urine was sent out and they found blood in it so he does have an infection. So we'll be doing antibiotics twice a day for 2 weeks. Anyone have any good tricks for getting a rabbit to take a human-sized pill? Attempts with craisins have failed as he spit them out.

The vet also gave him fluids and wants me to come back in to do it again tomorrow.

Vet visit ended up costing $212 and the antibiotics were $60. All because he had too much calcium in his diet. And I thought I was being so good by giving him more greens!
 
Zicheri said:
Winston had an x-ray yesterday to check for crystals in his bladder. Thankfully, that came back totally normal. So no surgery required - yay!

His urine was sent out and they found blood in it so he does have an infection. So we'll be doing antibiotics twice a day for 2 weeks. Anyone have any good tricks for getting a rabbit to take a human-sized pill? Attempts with craisins have failed as he spit them out.

The vet also gave him fluids and wants me to come back in to do it again tomorrow.

Vet visit ended up costing $212 and the antibiotics were $60. All because he had too much calcium in his diet. And I thought I was being so good by giving him more greens!
Click to expand...

Thank God. I have one suggestion. This will only work if your bun likes bananas. Crush the pill till its like powder, then get a slice of a banana and smush it into a goo and mix that with the pill (gross right? Lol) then put that into a syringe and feed him like you would to a little baby. Don't put syringe perpendicular to his front teeth, do it towards the corner of the mouth (there are videos on youtube on how to do this) and he should just eat it (hopefully ☺). Hope this helps and I hope he gets better soon!
 
I'm a little surprised you were given pills. We've always been given meds in liquid form. You could crush it up in a little plain yogurt. The yogurt might also help if your bunny has any gut issues from the med.

They make a pill pusher for use with dogs and cats. I guess you could use it with a rabbit, but I'd make it a last resort.
 
The pills (Baytril) have been a real pain, especially because they are BEEF flavored! I couldn't believe it when I found out. No wonder he hates it so much.

It's not easy, but I've found a way to get him the medicine. I crush the pill into a fine powder and then mix with cranberry juice. (You could also use banana, apple sauce, yogurt, etc.) The cranberry juice doesn't quite mask the beef flavor (ugh) but it doesn't seem like anything will. Then I use an oral syringe. I put a towel over him and kind of sit on top of him, then lift his head off the floor a bit with the scruff of his neck and squirt in the pill/juice mix along the side of his mouth.

I assume this would be a lot easier with a rabbit who isn't 18 pounds, but it's working. He still hates it and runs away when we're done, but no accidents since we figured this out.

Now I just have to figure out the right combination of pellets and greens so that we keep his calcium levels down. Unfortunately he loves dandelion greens (and they're cheap!), but those have quite a bit of calcium as compared to some others.
 
Baytril in pill form for a rabbit?! That's nuts. Your vet doesn't sound very rabbit savvy. My Steve was on it for a possible respiratory infection and it was liquid and it was fruit flavoured. Can you call them and see if you can get it in liquid form?
 
Fruit flavored? That would be nice. My vet doesn't seem to know anything about it and I'd rather not drop another $60 at this point for duplicate meds. Definitely pisses me off that they wouldn't have thought that the beef flavor would be a problem.

So far he has shown no sign of slowing down with food, so I guess he's feeling good so far.
 
Keep in mind that Winston is 18+ pounds (Flemish Giant). Could that have anything to do with the potential dog-dose?

Multiple vets at this clinic own rabbits of their own, and this is where Winston was neutered. They've generally seemed very knowledgeable until now.

Does anyone have a link to where I could buy Baytril in one of the fruity flavors? My google searches have come up short.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Latest posts

Back
Top