Eating the Litter Box...

[Bunny_Baby01]

Try putting a little hay and beddingin the cage and litter box. It's okay if the bunny "does their business" on one section and eats the clean. That's perfectly fine.It's the secret recipe, sort of thing. If they find something they really like to eat, it might distract them from thelitter box.I also mix a little kitty litter in it too. If that doesn't help, try getting another one, or contact your vet about it and what can be done. It probaby isn't the safest thing for your bunny to"digest" the box.:imsick:Hope this helped!

 

[Jenk]

JadeIcing wrote:

:cry1:Tried. I even folded cardboard over the chewed area and they chewed it till they could get to the plastic again.:biggrin2ersistant little buggers.

That describes Zoe to a T: tenacious.

So far, I'm happy to report that I've onlyonce overheard her briefly chew on the new box. I checked it for damage last night and found none. I suspect that she doesn't like chewing it because it's not nearly as convenient to do as it was her old box. The three drawbacks (for now), though, are that: 1) I must fill the box with hay, which raises costs; 2) a lack of litter means a larger mess to clean up on a nightly basis; 3) it's harder to gauge the amount of hay eaten when it's not in a hay manger. (I guess that I could still put some hay in her box and a huge pile in her hay manger, but I already know that she'll eat the hay in the box down to the very bottom of it. Again, tenacious...)

 

[Jenk]

I've added my responses (in bold font) below your questions.

DazyDaizee wrote:

-When she had the cage, was she given access to a different area during the day than she's in now?

Yes...and no. When she was caged (which was only for the overnight period), she used a box within it. But during the day, she had access to her outside box, which is in the very same place as always. (If we move it, she'll still potty in that corner; we must keep it there.) Whenever she was out of her cage,she seemed to prefer the outside box.

-Her sister: have they always been kept so close? She's being separated by a NIC panel wall, you said, this means she can easily see and smell the other rabbit and you say she marks this area where the litter pan is. Could she be aggressive/territorial towards the other rabbit. If so, is she chewing the box in attempt to move it to get at her sister or to mark the area? Has this always been their penned off setup, or has it changed?

The setup has changed slightly in the sense that both girls had cages within their larger x-pen areas; we removed the cages a few weeks' ago. Other than that, the NIC-panel divider setup is exactly the same as always. The girls have long lived that way. They even get supervised time out together most nights. (Mind you, they do get more territorial if they've been apart longer than three days', or so.)

Of course, not knowing the rabbit or seeing the situation first hand, I can only speculate, but I believe it's due to stress or territorial behavior. In my experience, normally behavior changes are the result of something rather than a chance occurrence.

I don't disagree with this possibility, but it's still odd because she didn't eat her outside litter box previously (when she had a cage within her x-pen area). Why she'd suddenly crave plastic so much (or feel so much more territorial now), I'm uncertain. But I'm doing my best to foil her desire to chew the litter box. If I must resort to a glass or metal baking pan, I'll do it.