Ugh Litter Box Training

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Hyatt101

Hyatt101

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, Maine, USA
Litter box training isn't going great. Taz can hop in the litterbox fine, but she just won't "go" in there! I have to scoop up all her poop and put it in the litter box. She isn't really catching on. Is she still too young? She's around 12 weeks old.

Any ideas? Anyone know how to litterbox train a rabbit? My mom doesn't want all the really bad mess and smell that comes from not going in a litterbox. She's in a small cage now, but once she's in the big NIC cage, I want her to be fully trained so we can keep her NIC nice and clean.
Thank you!
 
First off, not sure if you are using bedding in the cage or not but remove that as it confuses bunny on where to go.

Does she seem to pick a certain corner to pee? I would watch for that and place the litterbox where she pees. Also, put any soiled material in the litterbox so she smells that she has to go there. And then be as vigilant as possible to clean up accidents as soon as they happen.

Limit her free run space until she catches on. And of course getting her spayed when she is old enough can help with litter habits too.
 
She goes in the middle of her tiny cage :grumpy: so i can't put the litterbox there. I'm not using bedding in the cage, just old towels that we wash and change every few days. We use bedding in the litter box. Thankfully, she's not sleeping in there because I gave her a little cave that she sleeps in.
 
Hyatt101 wrote:
She goes in the middle of her tiny cage :grumpy: so i can't put the litterbox there. I'm not using bedding in the cage, just old towels that we wash and change every few days. We use bedding in the litter box. Thankfully, she's not sleeping in there because I gave her a little cave that she sleeps in.
Click to expand...

I would still put it there. Even if it looks displaced or whatever, you can always move it after she's trained. Point is you want to do whatever to get her to go in it.
 
Right, but the way her cage is set up (its small and longer than it is wide) the litterbox would totally block her from going anywhere. She'd literally have like 2 steps to walk. Thats what's so frustrating!
 
Can't she just hop over it? Hmm, not sure hard to imagine without seeing it.
I dunno what to tell you. That's how i trained Agnes. I remember I had to have her use this small temp one (it was actually an old Tupperware container) because the corner she picked I couldn't fit her litterbox in either. Try as I might, I couldn't get her to pick a new corner.
Could you do that? Get a smaller litterbox for training purposes?
 
with poops, you've probably just got to get used to stray poops until she's spayed - at their best, mine only ever got 70-80% of the poops in the boxes.
 
Right, its the pee I really want in the litterbox. I should post a pic of her cage so you can see how i can't put the litterbox in the middle
 
not sure what to tell you... mine were pretty good about pee, but Gaz would pee outside the boxes (usually somewhere in the run) once every day or two starting around the time I took their store-bought cage away and put them in the NIC condo... though sometimes it was a butt-over-the-box issue. she's peed on the floor twice in the five days since she's been spayed. I'm hoping it improves now that she's feeling better.
 
With Oliver I put his litterbox in the area where he pooped the most in his cage and he used it... there was stray poos until I got him neutered and then he started using the litterbox always. Now he is having territorial issues and is pooing on my bed but... he is usually really good. I did what they said though, put his poops in the litterbox whenever he went outside it and he really caught on pretty quickly. :/ I guess it could depend on the rabbit?
 
It might be that she doesn't like stepping on that kind of litter. I had a new rabbit that didn't like the kind of litter I was using. She wouldn't use her litterbox, so I changed her litter and she loved it! She started rolling on her back in the litter, like she was scratching her back in it. So maybe try a different litter. You're using the yesterdays news pellets right? You could try something like the aspen shavings or even hay. I get mine at walmart. You might need to take the towels out of her cage, that might help too. The don't mind peeing on a towel, but if it's a hard floor and they get the pee on their feet, rabbits don't usually like that. What kind of floor do you have in her cage?

So maybe take the towels out and try that. If she keeps peeing on the floor, then try the aspen shavings. You could also try putting hay in the litter box so she'll want to be in there to eat it. You can either put it over the litter that's in there or if you have a hay rack, place it so that she has to get in the litter box to eat it.
 
I had a cat that didn't like any litter and never used the litter box, but used the floor next to it.
So I ditched the litter box and they go outside now.

I would do as Jenny suggested and change the litter to see if she likes something else better.
 
What I did was place a few of those box tops that you find on say boxes of tomatoes etc and put hay in one end and left the other end alone and put some of her poop and rubbed some soiled hay on the end we wanted her to go in and she eventually chose one and we limited her to that area for a week or two and after that we never had many problems and they were both really young when we did it.
 
I think she likes her litter because she keeps hopping in there.... I'm thinking once she's in the big cage maybe she'll choose a corner, becasue, come to think of it, all our other rabbits go in one corner, but we never trained them. They I could put the litterbox in that corner.

Thank you all for your help!! :)
 
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