Bunny Care Guide - How To Litter Train Your Bunny
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First of all, put the idea of 'training' out of your mind. You're not really training your rabbit at all. A rabbit will naturally pick a place that it likes to toilet in, and it will return to that place like clockwork unless it becomes sick or disturbed in some other fashion. What you are really doing is finding out where your rabbit wants to go, and putting a litter tray there.
Secondly, realize that the training mostly refers to the urine and soft droppings. Your bunny will most likely leave a few hard round pellets about the place from time to time. This is how rabbits mark their territory. These pellets are easily swept up and are odorless, so they are not a major concern to most people.
Ideally, your rabbit will simply return to its cage in order to relieve itself, and this is what many rabbits do, especially if enough 'in cage' time is given at the early stages, so that the rabbit can develop a strong connection to its potty place.
Always enable your rabbit access to its cage, there is no better way to ensure an accident than by mistakenly shutting the cage door and forcing the bunny to find a new place, a new place which will in all likelihood, stick.
methods recommend placing litter trays in every corner of the area your rabbit is going to be allowed in when you first let your rabbit out of the cage, and then removing litter trays when your rabbit shows you which of these it chooses to use. This is a valid method, though it may be a bit overkill, and if you are on a limited budget, the prospect of buying multiple uneccesary litter trays may not be one you relish. You may also not like the idea of having your home turned into an open litter tray and having to leave trays out in various corners of your home.
An alternative is to limit the space the bunny has when it exits its cage. Let the bunny leave and return at will, building its confidence in being able to come and go, and reinforcing the toileting behavior as you slowly expand the rabbit's realm.
Fortunately for us humans, rabbit training generally is very easy. You may have accidents and your bunny may have its own preferences (which are generally best worked with, not against as the likelihood that the bunny is going to change its mind about where it wants to toilet are very slim.) At the end of the day however, toilet 'training' your bunny is one of the simplest and easiest things you can do to ensure you enjoy your rabbit's company over the years
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Comments
Of course, because rabbits will almost always go toilet in a corner, having litter trays in the corners whilst you are training your rabbit will save you the clean up alltogether. But that's a great tip about cleaning up if you do have accidents! Thank you!
We have a mini rex and we are first time owners..we love this rabbit..she is only a few months old and is truely beautiful(she has developed such a awesome personality). However, potty training is not going as well as we had hoped. She has a litter box in her cage ..and choose's to use our sofa and love seat as her personal litter box. We have been applying the vinegar and water solution to detour her. Dosent seem to be working very well. CAn anyone help?
Sleepless in the Burg,
Mimi
Here's how it works. You don't tell the bunny where to go, the bunny decides where it will go, and you work with it. Vinegar and water won't do anything except reduce the urine odor. I would keep her confined to her cage until she starts using it as her bathroom, and make that love seat and sofa off bounds. Rabbit potty training isn't really 'training' in the sense of the word as one does with humans and dogs and cats, it is simply working with the rabbit's natural inclination to pick a place and go there. As she has picked your furniture, you probably need to keep her out of that room or away from that furniture until such time as she picks a new, more appropriate spot in her cage. Leaving her confined will force her to do this, and will create a less icky toilet habit.
i think all your ideas will work
i've got a bunny and mum and i want to train it. good ideas i'm nine years old and thanks
brianna
my bunny is good about only urinating in his litter box. recently though he has started kicking the kitty litter out of the box when he goes in, which creates quite a mess. i would appreciate any suggestions as to how to get him to stop this, or any ideas about why he's doing it.
thanks your ideas works I hve a baby bunny and I traned it myself my mom was not even in the u.s. when I did too and im only 10 years old!!!
i just got 2 baby bunnys and they pee and poop EVERYWHERE!!i've tried a few new things and they arnt workin out so well any ideas would b gr8!!
I've had my 10 week old bunny for about 2 weeks. One of her favorite places to "go" is on my BED! I am NOT thrilled! She is very sociable and when left in her cage too long gets spaztic and destructive... Any suggestions on training my bunny?
One of my bunnies dont let me pick them up when i do Flame bites me! I do just open the cage and he jups out but then i cant pick him back up!
PLEASE HELP ME!!!
My new bunny loves going to the bath room on the couch! We already have a bunny named Pepper and she/he (we don't know yet)loves her litter box! The new baby bunny prefers her food and water, but most baby bunnys do! Older bunnys love there cages!(well Pepper does) It is realy funny watch cute bunnys roll in a litter tray and it is also realy annoying to watch bunnys roll in there CLEAN NEW CAGES ! I am 11 and it is pretty easy to train bunnys,but only after they choose a nice place to pee and poo
I have a 11 month old Holland Lop named Molly that I love a whole bunch. However, I am having the hardest time litter training her. My problem is that she seems to pee in many different areas of her cage,not just one corner. It seems like she actually favors the middle of her cage, but it's hard to put a littler pan there (as she needs to hop around and such). I just got her a new, bigger cage, and any headway we had made in litter training seems to have disappeared when she moved into her new cage. I'm wondering if anyone has had a similar problem as this, and if anyone can help me. I've tried every trick in the book, everything mentioned here as well as other help pages on the internet. I'm just very, very frustrated.
pat the bunny says:
2 years ago
If your bunny has picked a place that is NOT okay with you, clean it up using a vinegar and water solution (it removes your bunny's scent), multiple times if necessary, until s/he stops peeing and pooping there. My bunny used to go in a nook right next to his cage much to the chagrin of my roommates. A couple days of regular poop removal and spraying the vinegar solution, and Pat the Bunny now only goes in his cage!