Once upon a time she was litter box trained

[indianavex]

....but now, no more!

I'm not sure what gives! My bun used to be litter box trained. Maybe she still missed and would pee off the edge now and again (it has a low lip, it made sense), but now she absolutely refuses to do anything in the litter box! Her poop is scattered all around the floor of her cage and her pee moves every blasted time I move the litter box to wherever she decided to pee last! I'm not sure what it is! She'll push all the bedding out of her box (flinging it outside the cage if she must), then lie down in it. If I move all the soiled bedding back inside the litter box and clean her cage so nowhere else smells like pee, just the box, she'll still shove the bedding out and resume peeing wherever she very well pleases. I've tried putting hay in the box (she used to lie in the box, eat the hay, and poop and pee there too happily), but now no dice.

Any ideas on why the sudden defiance and how to solve this irksome issue?

 

[missyscove]

Is she spayed? She could just be reaching her teenage stage if she's the right age for that.

What is in her cage outside of her litter box? If you're using bedding outside the box, stop.
Try adding another litter box. I had a bun who liked to use one box as a bed and the other as his litter box and if I took one away he'd pee on the floor and sleep in the box.

 

[indianavex]

She's 2 and spayed, so no teen angst! There's no bedding outside of her litter box, either. It only winds up outside of her litter box when she shoves it out of it. I could try putting in another one, though, I guess she's just apparently decided this one is for lying in rather than going in.

 

[Bunnylova4eva]

Have you switched bedding recently by any chance?

 

[indianavex]

Yes, but it actually went the other way around. Because of this new "forget the litter box" habit of hers I switched to a different, cheaper bedding. I originally had her on CareFresh Ultra, now she's on Fresh World. Where she used to go in her litter box, I could go without changing it every 2-3 days. Now that her pee and poo is everywhere, I have to change it daily or it gets incredibly foul in there.

I'm also starting to wonder if she isn't spraying, because some of the urine is making its way on the walls of her cage which is decidedly a VERY new habit.

 

[indianavex]

Bringing this back because it's relevant still--

She's refusing to use the box. Any box. She'll pointedly pee outside of it, across her cage, and when I move the litter box (or add a second one) she'll pee outside of both of them. She still loves me, grooms me when I go into her cage to clean the mess, and wants to be loved on, so I don't think this is a grudge. I'm just not sure where the behavior is coming from!

 

[agnesthelion]

Couple questions....

How big and what type of litter box do you have?

How big and what type of cage?

What is the flooring material in the cage?

How long have you had her?

What kinds of litters have you tried?

 

[JBun]

Also something to consider is that when a rabbit who is normally good about using the litter box, suddenly stops using it, there may be a medical problem like a UTI or bladder sludge, causing the sudden loss of litter habits.

 

[indianavex]

Litter box is a pink plastic tub, roughly 1'x6", high sides. Her cage is a 2-level wooden hutch. In the bottom I have a rubber bath mat (the bottom is open, the bottom of the top level is plastic), I've had her since July, and I originally used Carefresh Ultra paper bedding and recently moved to Sunseed Fresh World paper pelleted bedding.

Her pee has all been fairly normal-looking for her (ranges deep buttery yellow to reddish), and she pees and poops a'plenty. She's never been an energetic bunny, so lethargy is hard to measure sometimes but I'm not opposed to taking her into the vet to be checked for a UTI or something.

 

[JBun]

If your litter box is 1x6", then you could try a larger litter box and either put her hay in a corner of the litter box, or put her hay container/rack above it(if you don't do this already), so that she has to sit in there to eat hay. If that doesn't work, you could try a few more different litters, like aspen bedding. If you've tried everything and it still doesn't fix it, you may want to take her into the vet to rule out a health problem.