There's got to be a way. :(

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littl3red

littl3red

Ashtin - Member
Joined
Jul 11, 2012
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Location
Manhattan, Kansas, USA
Okay, I'm starting to get frustrated with Teddy's way of not pooing in her litter box. It doesn't bother me so much as it does my mom and house guests, and I get that. It's just not pretty. It's also kinda frustrating when I'm telling my teachers about my exit project (training my rabbit) and they're like "Rabbits are smart enough to be trained?" And I'm like "Yes, my rabbit's already litter-box trained." And then they say "Really, your rabbit uses a litter box? Like a cat or something?" And I have to say "Well..." and then discuss the locations of small mammal excrements with my teachers.

She pees in her litter box exclusively, 100% of the time, but her poos are left pretty much wherever she pleases. I leave hay in her litter box and also have her hay manger right next to her litter box, is there anything else I can do or do I just have to live with it? Like I said, it's not like I'm going to kick her out of the house if she doesn't use her litter box more, but it would just be more convenient (and less messy) if she did.
 
It took a little longer than I thought to litter box training my Big Bunny. Same thing, he was excellent with pee, but not poo. I was lucky since I wasn't working, I could stay home with him and catch him when he missed the litter box. I had trained him (mostly) to come when he's called, so after an incident I would call him over to me, plop him in the litterbox, give him some hay, and 9 times out of 10 he would poop there again. If he did poop, I would give him a treat. This went on for a few weeks (maybe 2) and now he's great. This method requires a lot of time though, but I know you can train your Teddy! Good luck!
 
Ahh, I wish I was home more often so it would happen quicker. :( But yeah, I'll definitely do that. It would be so nice not to have to clean out her whole cage every day or two...
 
I like to tell people that litter training is mostly about the urine. That's the most important part. If they urinate in the box, I consider them trained, period.

That said, and as you know, bunnies tend to leave stray poos around. I've only had a couple rabbits who didn't poo outside their cage. When one considers that they poo over 200 pellets in a day, it could be considered somewhat unrealistic to expect them to just sit in the litterbox all day. :wink

But then I also follow up and say that the pellets are dry and clean. People have such a preconception (understandably) about "poo" that the thought just grosses them out. But rabbit "pellets" aren't smelly or messy.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that it all depends on how you present it. When you tell your teachers Teddy is litter trained, "yes, she urinates in there 100% of the time and so is considered trained. Since she drops over 200 dry and clean pellets per day, not all of those can be expected to be in the box. She uses some of these to mark her territory. This is normal rabbit behavior. She knows to always return to her box to urinate." :coolness:
 
Blue eyes, I get what you're saying. I don't expect her to be perfect! I just know that some rabbits do use the litter box for their poo a lot of the time and I wanted to make my rabbit one of them. :biggrin: I just know it would make it so much easier, and maybe get my mom to like her more, which would be awesome, because she's in an I-hate-animals-let's-take-all-of-ours-to-the-shelter kinda mood the last couple of days, which is making me really nervous. She complains about her poo on the floor all the time and it's gotten to the point where I have to let Teddy out of her cage in secret because my mom gets so mean when she's not in her cage! :( But yeah, just having to dump out the litter box every day would be pretty nice too. ;)
 
How long has it been since she was spayed?

Ellie was spayed 7/25/2012 and just in the last 3 days has been putting 99% of the poo in the 2 litter boxes. I finally just left the broom & dustpan in her room.
 
She was spayed 7/9/12, so it's been quite a while... I also have no idea of her age, all I know is that she was full grown when I got her. So she might just be an old lady set in her ways...
 
How much area is Teddy allowed to be in? Ellie had to be confined to her cage & her front yard- which consists go a 8' long, 36" high fence all located in the sunroom. I had given her the whole room & she kept decorating th floor with little black poos.
 
Blue eyes wrote:
People have such a preconception (understandably) about "poo" that the thought just grosses them out. But rabbit "pellets" aren't smelly or messy.
Click to expand...

It's true! I touch rabbit poo like it's no big deal, and it really isn't. I have become quite the poo inspector too, just to make sure GI tracts are working as they should :)

Anyone ever tried Critter Litter? Little pellet-looking balls you're supposed to put in their litter box?...I don't know if that's safe for rabbits because when they get wet, they turn to paste and that made me nervous so I discontinued it.
 
I've read that if your bunn has access to a lot of space, there should be a litter box every 15 feet or so, otherwise they'll probably forget to run all the way back when they need to go - maybe you could set up another litter pan or two.
 
Well, she only has my bedroom to run in, because of the aforementioned dislike of her by my mother, but she's in her NIC cage while I'm at work or school, so she's out anywhere from 2-8 hours a day on average. She leaves a lot more pellets in her cage than she does on the carpet, most of them are just scattered about on the first floor of her cage.
 
Agnes would leave a few stray pellets here and there before she was spayed but always peed in her litterbox. I agree with blue eyes, if they pee in the litterbox, they are trained.

But after Agnes was spayed, she now ONLY poops in the litterbox too. It was amazing! Every, single poop she does in the litterbox. The only ones that I have to pick up are the ones that fly out when she jumps out of her box because they stuck in her mane...but thats like 5 or 6 right around the box and that's it.

But I don't think you can do anything to train them that way. It depends on the bun. The only thing that may make a difference is keeping stray poops picked up may help them understand where they go. When she was a baby I literally followed her around and picked up poops with my hand :) as soon as they came out and put them in her litterbox. I never wanted her to smell or see poops any other place than her litterbox. I also have always kept her condo and litterbox clean too.

Other than that, it just might be your buns personality. But at least thei poop doesn't smell or stain!
 
My rabbits are pretty well litter trained when they are in their cage in Brenham. When they are out to run there I do not even bother giving them a litter box. (1 rabbit will sit in there the whole time and the other will not go near it). When they are in their cage at my parents house they do not use the litter box at all. This morning I had to clean up a river of pee and a mountain of poop from each cage. I have not let them out to run this weekend (I know that is bad). When they get to run at my parents house they do have a litter box but they do not use it.

What I am trying to say is that your rabbit sounds pretty well trained to me. Maybe you could do like someone else said and add a couple more litter boxes to their run area.
 
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