Rabbit litterbox woes

[Krissa]

I'm new to rabbits and I am having some troubleswith my male Dutch. I adopted Frodo from a co-worker whose cat wastormenting him; he is under a year old. Frodo has a very large homemadecage which I built with my husband. (This a picture we took when wefirst made ithttp://www.trailsearch.org/bunny/).

He originally was very good with his litter box, only peeing outside itonce in a while overnight. Two weeks ago his hormones kicked in, but healready had an appointment to be neutered, so I was not concerned,except that he no longer goes in the litter box at all. He was neuteredlast week and continues to pee right next to the box no matter where Imove it. His vet visit pronounced him in great heath and heis a great bunny, but the peeing is driving me crazy!

He only pees and poopson the bottom level of the cage, and Ihave yet to catch him in the act (he always pees when I’m at work orasleep). He is perfect outside his cage, not a puddle on the carpet.Should I remove the litter box and cover the floor in bedding forawhile, put him in a smaller cage and try to retrain, or just hope ashis hormones go away andhe gets his good habits back? I hopeI did not wait too long to neuter him and that his bad habit is nowset, I had difficulty finding a vet who I trusted to work on my littlebaby. Any suggestions would help

Also, I got a female mini lop to be his buddy. I read that spaying afemale too early was difficult as the organs would not be developed.She is the best little bunny with her litter box and I do not wanthormones to ruin her good habits. How long should I wait until I gether spayed? (I have not allowed the two bunnies to be together yet,only sniffing through the bars - I don’t want any unwanted litters).

Thanks

 

[Boricua_bunny]

Hi! It is alright that Frodo is peeing a lot,even though you got him neutered. All rabbits act like that aftergetting neutered or spayed. He will be back to normal after a couple ofdays. Now, about the female mini lop. How old is she now? I think youshould wait at least until she is six months to spay her, but you mayneed to talk with your vet about what you both think is right. Goodluck!

P.S.- We hope to see some pics of your buns!

 

[thbunns]

I had one of my male bunnies neutered when hewas a year old. Right after he was neutered he stopped peeing all overthe place, but then a month or two after he was peeing everywhere,especially right after we cleaned up pee, just to make us mad! Hecontinued to be like that and weended up buying a cage that was biggerand easier to clean. He passed away last April = \
I wish I had advice. I'm getting one of my buns neutered in a month ortwo, and I would love to know what to do as well. Obviously, I wasdoing something wrong in the litterbox department with the other bun.

 

[Kricket]

Can you place an additional litterbox or boxesin the spots he like to pee? My Dutch male has been neuteredand was great with his litterbox before the neuter, then right after(for about a month or more) he peed anywhere he wanted!During that time, he had THREE litterboxes in his cage.heeeheee. It was more work, but I figured, darn it, I amgoing to get him back on track, no matter what I need to do!

Krissa, welcome to this wonderful forum! I am SO impressedwith your comment on keeping them separated. No unwantedlitters wanted from you, very good! And so responsible ofyou!

 

[ariel]

Hi and welcome.
I agree with kricket on the extra litter tray thing, I did that withBindy for outside the hutch whilst she was exploring the house, havinga couple of litter trays scattered around did help and maybe you couldtry the corner type ones in your hutch, which by the way you and hubbydid a fantastic job on! It looks great!

I liked the seperating comment, dealing with 1 or 2 buns is enough whenyou are new to the rabbit world let alone having a whole zillion todeal with straight up LOL

Once again welocme , and do you have some pics of your bunnies?

 

[Krissa]

Here's a picture of Frodo, the dutch. I took thepicture, he's acutally sitting on my bedsheets . I'm going to make awebpage about my pets soon, but we are about to reformat our web server(my husband is a netword admistrator) so I'll have more cute picturessoon.

http://www.trailsearch.org/bunny/Buns3%20copy.jpg

 

[ariel]

Ah Frodo is beautiful!!

I really like the way the black and white photo turned out.

 

[naturestee]

Is he able to get in the box? Thesides might be a little high for him, as he's probably still a littlesore. You can cut down one side to make it easier for him toget in.

Aside from that, just soak up the urine with paper towels and put it inthe litterbox to give him the idea. Then clean the cage floorwith a mild vinegar solution. If the floor smells like pee,he'll keep peeing on it. Multiple litterboxes helpstoo. I just put a second litterbox in with my bonded couple,and it seems to be helping.

 

[Kricket]

Hey Krissa Are you a professionalphotographer? That photo is awesome! What a littlecutie.

Hugs!

 

[Krissa]

Thanks for all the ideas . I'm not aprofessional photographer, but I have a really good camera andAdobePhotoshop. You can probally guess how hard it was to get him tosit still for that picture.

 

[Krissa]

I finally dont have to clean uppee!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I started thinking about what everyone wassaying about him peeing over the side of the box, so I went out abought a very high sided covered box. Now he only pees in the box.

Next is moving Merry in with Frodo so they can keep each other company.

 

[naturestee]

Hooray!

:groupparty: