Litter training - blind and deaf rabbit

[Bonnie96]

Hi all,

I have two lovely rabbits one male and one female (spayed and neutered) I've had since they were babies and they get on well. The male rabbit is completely deaf and I think partially or fully blind - he's very unresponsive. They have free roam of one of the rooms in our house with a dog crate in the corner (we used to shut them in over night when they were little) but now we leave it open and they just use it as their house. Inside the dog crate is their litter tray.
My male rabbit who is blind and deaf can't seem to tell the difference between the litter tray and the crate as a whole and just urinates all over it and sometimes ends up dipping his ears in his own urine so I have to constantly spot clean him.

I think Florence my female rabbit haz now started to copy this making it worse.

I tried taking the crate away but then he urinates where it was on the carpet. Shall I just give in and put litter over the whole crate or is there a way I can teach him to just use the tray?

Sorry for such a long post and thank you in advance!

 

[Catlyn]

how often do you catch him doing the relieving in the wrong place? when you spot him doing it often just before he does it, have you tried lifting him up and placing him in the correct litter tray? if you haven´t tried it, i would suggest giving it a shot. you need to deep clean the crate before that, but it´s still worth a try. if he's not totally blind, that is. if that doesn't help at all, then you would need to move the litter tray to the place where the crate is, and if that is no use, just turn it into a litter box for him Hope it helps, and good luck!

 

[Bonnie96]

Hi Catlyn

Thanks so much for your reply, it's tricky because he's very nervous of being picked up so it's hard to do if I do catch him. Yes maybe turning the whole crate into a litter tray is the best option.

Bonnie x

 

[Catlyn]

I'm pretty sure that any bun who has partially lost sense of the world would be nervous of more things than most rabbits. But the main thing is that he gets to live a long and happy life with his friend and everyone else. Wish you all the best!

 

[JBun]

If the litter tray has a higher side, it may be he doesn't feel comfortable hopping up and into it and that is why he's peeing outside of it. You could maybe try a low sided litter tray(or make a cut in your current one to make the side low), though you may need to first put it in the spot he's usually been peeing until he gets used to it. You may also need to kind of help get him accustomed to the new litter tray, as anything new is likely to be a little difficult for him to navigate.