Who says spayed females are "hutch-proud"?

[Sabine]

This has become a problem worth posting about. My two girls, Coco (about a year old and spayed) and Magic (about seven months old, intact) share a two storey hutch. I have litter in the upstairs closed compartment (which they never ever seem to use) and at the bottom I have to plastic litter trays and newspaper to line the rest of the cage. The larger tray is to the left and also used as a toilet. there's a smaller tray to the right underneath the hay feeder and this corner causes a problem. It's a very small and awkward space and only one of the smaller shallower littertrays fit in there. Most days that corner is a complete mess. Pee and poop everywhere outside the tray and i usually have to take up the newspaper and clean the wood on a daily basis. I expect the main culprit is Coco going by the colour of the pee. She also has the habit of jumping into the other rabbits hutches while I'm cleaning, peeing and pooping everywhere, wherr there's no littertray. I can't put a high backed corner tray there either because the big one won't fit and the small one is too small. Is there anyway of putting a rabbit off using a particular part of the cage as a toilet. You'd think they'd hate all the wet weed on newspaper being clean creatures by nature. When Lint and Magic (both unspayed)shared the same hutch things were much neater. How can a spayed female be so messy. Is there any cure?

 

[Amy27]

I have two spayed females and they do use their litter box most of the time. When they go in an area I don't want them too I will put something there so they can't get to that area. I have used boxes like shoes boxes. But I do have to replace them often as they will eat the box until then can get inside and then go inside the box. But they still would go around the litter box. I would find anything you can put in that area that is safe for them. You could try putting their toys in that area so it would be harder. I am trying to think of other things but am really not coming up with anything else. I did try putting hay in my litter box to try and get them to go in there more and that did help. I know that I will never get mine fully trained. It stinks having to clean up the mess. I have two huge cat litter boxes in there area. The biggest cat litter boxes I could find and they will still go on the floor more then I would like. Good luck.

 

[Baby Juliet]

Poop everywhere don't matter. It's the piss that's messy. I'm going to try tilting the hutch so at least the pee will drain to one side instead of having a total wet floor.

I noticed that my doe would pee in the empty litter box. I'm going to try placing it on the wire portion instead of the wood part of the floor.

 

[Sabine]

I still haven't figured a solution, except trying to find a better fitting higher backed litter tray. It just amazes me that the soayed girl is messier than all the intact ones

 

[Baby Juliet]

Maybe you should try taking out the smaller litter box. If you can get them to always pee in a big box, it only take a minute to sweep up dry poop. It's wet pee that makes the mess.

I noticed once that the rabbit was in the litter box but peed outside the box because the box wasn't big enough.

So a small box may be the problem.

 

[Sabine]

That might be the solution, After all the other box is big enough to hold all the pee and I clean every day