Ziggy somehow pees UNDER his litter box...help?

[Dragonrain]

Ziggy is my neutered male broken blue holland lop. He's a complete slob, and has been pretty much since I got him. I don't know if it's because I have two males or what his deal is, but he isn't very good at using his litter box.

I've come to accept that, and just clean up after him. I've pretty much given up hope about his litter box skills ever improving at this point. He uses his box maybe 60% of the time, the rest of the time he just pees/poos wherever he pleases.

But this is the weird thing. He somehow manages to get pee underneath his litter box.

I have no idea how the heck he does it. There's no pee on the side of the box, no pee around the box, but every time I lift it up to clean it, without fail, there is a huge pee puddle that was hiding underneath it.

I use this litter box for him...

Rubbermaid high sidded litter box

So I don't think it's an issue of him missing the box, or hanging his butt over the edge or anything like that. I tried using this...

http://www.ugodog.net/

Underneath his litter box. It's just a plastic tray with a grate top. I used it under his box, thinking that however he was getting pee under the box, that having this under the litter box would collect the pee. I put litter in the udogog tray thing so the pee would be absorbed and maybe not smell as bad.

But then, I have no idea how, pee would just get under the plastic tray. I seriously have no idea how the heck he's accomplishing this now.

I thought maybe it was his cage location - the floor in our apartment isn't perfectly flat in some spots, so I thought maybe it was just a coincidence that the pee was pooling under the box. But I've since moved the location of the cage, and before I tired moving the location of the litter box...he still gets pee under it!

I don't know what else to try. The pee under the box smells, and it's hard to clean it every day, because his litter box is big and it's kind of hard to fit it through his cage door. It's gross taking his box out of his cage, because it's always nasty and covered with pee on the bottom.

If I put newspaper under the box, it just gets wet with pee and gets all nasty. I was thinking of putting a towel under the box, but I only go to the laundromat once a week and I don't know how I feel about having a bunch of pee soaked towels sitting around the house till laundry day.

Any idea of how he's getting pee under the box, so I can maybe stop it? Or something I could put the litter box on top of that would absorb the pee but be easy to clean?

I think Zigs is some kind of pee wizard or something. He uses his evil powers to place pee in in places pee should never be found!

 

[kirbyultra]

I can only tell that Penny does the same thing sometimes. Since she likes to pee beside her box, sometimes it is right at the foot of the box and the pee seeps underneath. Very stealth. Before I lined her entire play area with a giant towel, it used to seep underneath all the time. Now that the towel is there, the towel puts it to a halt, but since she does this every single day and I only wash that towel about once a week, the stained ring in the towel grows in size daily. I'm sure since you follow my blog you know it's an ongoing problem with her, and I've finally decided to buy washable bed pads (at allegromedical.com) meant for incontinence. I bought two so that I could swap it and wash the soiled one perhaps once a day or every two days. I plan on hand washing them... icky. But supposedly they absorb better than a towel and they air dry faster than a cotton towel. And it has a cotton top so you don't have to worry about Ziggy chewing on it.

I wish I could tell you why...

 

[Dragonrain]

But that's the weird thing... I never find pee next to the box, only under it, and then in random spots around the room. I guess he could be peeing right up against the side of the outside of the box, and it's going underneath. I thought for sure that plastic tray under the box would catch the pee if it was an issue of him peeing right next to the box, or over the front of the box, but somehow the pee just ends up under the plastic tray too.

Maybe I'll check out the bed pads. I would have to hand wash them I guess, because I'm not going to go to the laundromat every day to wash things that Ziggy pees on, and I don't like the idea of leaving them there till laundry day if they have pee on them.

I should just line the whole bunny room in absorbent bed pads with Ziggy around, ha.

 

[okiron]

Any chance there's a small crack in the litterbox? We had that happen once with the cats' litterbox and we came to find out there was a crack in it that we couldn't see. Only reason we knew it was there is because we filled it with water and saw it leak.

 

[kirbyultra]

lol good point about the litter box leak! Better check for that for Ziggy.

The bed pads came lightning fast for me, Chelle. I ordered them late Wednesday and it already arrived today. They are based in NJ so you ought to get them as quick. I happened to buy them at 60% off too, so it was really quite affordable!! Normally they are about $14 a piece. I laid one down where Penny hangs out. So far, no destruction of the pad yet. We'll see tomorrow morning if it does the trick. It looks pretty durable.

And they do come in different sizes so you could very well line the whole area LOL

 

[Nancy McClelland]

That is really strange. Some of ours would get so close to the edge that it would either run down the side or completely hit the floor. I solved our problem by putting the litter pan in a card board box and cutting an entry way in the middle. That way if they miss, it hits the cardboard which can be replaced and tossed when it gets bad.

 

[cheryl]

I have this problem also and never knew how it got under the litter box...i don't know which bunny it is either...it could be Cassidy or Ebony..cause the litter box is in the loungeroom....i put a plastic table cloth under the litter box..

 

[Pet_Bunny]

Nancy McClelland wrote:

I solved our problem by putting the litter pan in a card board box and cutting an entry way in the middle.

That an inexpensive idea.

Iput my litterboxes inthe bottom partof the sparecages that I have.

However Bebe is so good with her litter habits that shecan use any container to pee in.

This is her main litterboxin her cage.It is two dishes with a screen on top.

"Do you Mind???!"

 

[Pet_Bunny]

cheryl wrote:

I have this problem also and never knew how it got under the litter box...i don't know which bunny it is either...

I guess the best way is to keep an eye on them and catch them in the act to solve the problem.

 

[SOOOSKA]

Hey Chelle,

At our Dollar store you can get Training pads for puppies. i put those under the litter boxes. Mine sometimes get urine also under their litter boxes. i guess their bums are too big and hang over. LOl

Susan:biggrin:

 

[kirbyultra]

Puppy pads have weird chemicals in it for attracting dogs, not good for buns.

 

[Dragonrain]

I tried using puppy pads before (not all brands have the chemicals/smells that attract dogs) that I had left over from our dog, but the bunnies tried to chew on them so I took them out again right away. The pads had a plastic bottom and I didn't want the bunnies to swollow any plastic pieces.

I don't think there is a crack in the litter pan, because I fill it with vinegar and water twice a week when I clean it and I've never noticed it leaking then. Plus, this has happened before with him with a different litter box.

It's just so weird that I never see pee on the side of the box, or on the floor near the box, but I pick it up and there's a puddle underneath it. I don't think he's hanging his butt over and peeing over the sides, because his litter box has pretty high sides and he's only a 4 lb rabbit. He can't really reach the top of the box well enough that his butt would hang off it.

I'm doing an experiment! I lined the bottom of the cage with newspaper, then put the litter box on top of that. If he's peeing next to the box, a pee spot should show up on the newspaper in the area where he's peeing.

That is, if he actually pees in his box (or near it)! He peed all over the area rug in their room this morning. :rollseyes