How long did it take your rabbit to learn to use the litter tray?

[d0tti]

I've followed every tutorial online and my two buns (two 11 week old flemish x nz white boys) still manage to poop and pee everywhere! I occasionally see a wee in the tray and think YAY! then an hour later there is a piddle on the floor. Same with poops, 70% of the time they poo outside the tray, anywhere, they will be walking across my lounge, sitting on my lap and behold, another poo. I really want to keep them indoors, i bring them inside about 3-4 hours a day and am constantly picking up pebbles.

How long did it take you all to train your rabbis?

 

[Korr_and_Sophie]

It as varied from rabbit to rabbit. I have had a few that trained themselves and it took maybe a day or 2 for them to be using the litter box the vast majority of the time (still the odd poop and maybe a pee once in a while out of the box). Others have taken longer, Tesla took about 5-6 months for him to be consistent about it and for me to find a box he liked.

You do have 2 11 week old males. This can make litter training a bit harder. Being 11 weeks, they are still quite young and don't have a ton of control about when and where they go. Being boys, it can be a bit harder as they may want to mark as they get older, getting them neutered should help this. Having 2 means you don't know who is doing what, one could be using the litter box and the other not. Having to bring them inside doesn't help either since rabbits tend to poop out of the litter box more when they are not at home.

Rabbits are poop machines. I do prefer them to pee in the litter box since it is harder to clean up pee. The poops are easy enough to sweep up, so I don't worry about that as much.

 

[agnesthelion]

Where are they at outside? Caged? In a hutch? Free roam out in a yard?

 

[d0tti]

Are your bunnies indoor rabbits? I want indoor rabbits but petrified of pee on the carpet as im renting, i see everyone else seems to have rabbits who didn't even need training, my little babies are poop and pee machines . buh! Thank you for your reply. I will have to be patient

 

[HolyHandGrenade]

A day, for a 7-week Flemish. She came from a pen with bedding and her siblings in it at the pet store to a plastic-covered tile floor in an exercise pen in my kitchen with a litter box full of recycled paper pellet litter. Never once peed outside of the box, and it started off without any waste in it for her to smell, since I didn't think to ask for a bit of soiled bedding from the store's pen. A couple things I did right from the start were to set her in the litter and pet her there, and I placed her food bowl in there once I noticed she'd make a little pile of poos while she ate. I'd try to watch for when she lifted her tail slightly to pee, or see the addition of more poo, and praise her. Any stray poops I put into her box immediately (there was a lot of dustpan action that first day) I'm pretty amazed, but also probably not much help, sorry

She's now kept in a large dog crate (you can see it in the background of my avatar pic) that has a hard plastic floor and still only goes potty in her litter box. Occasional poops, but that's normal for rabbits.

 

[d0tti]

They have a hutch (two storey, store bought type) with run approx 3m x 2m i attached myself, but when i'm not at work i let them run around the yard. I feel like a bad rabbit owner not having indoor rabbits! haha

 

[HolyHandGrenade]

It'll probably take some effort to get them to understand the difference between outside and inside rules...they can go anywhere outside, so they're not going to know right away what you intend for them to do in the litter tray. Maybe try reducing their area inside (to maybe a square meter or so) so they're kept rather close to the litter box, and make it the ONE soft place in that area, and put hay and food in one end of it to entice them to spend time there. Also, how big is the tray?

 

[agnesthelion]

Okay so that's probably part of your problem. With them being outside the majority of the time, they are going where ever and whenever they want there, right? Then, you bring them in for a couple hours a day but that's not enough time or enough consistency to teach them litter habits.

With Agnes, it probably took her a week or two. But I was on top of it. At the beginning she was confined to a smaller temp cage. She picked a corner that she liked to pee so I put a litterbox there. I kept it dirty so she smelled her scent there. Also, any time she went pee in any other part I would clean it thoroughly immediately.

For free run she was limited to small time increments and small areas so it was less room for error.

Finally, I got her spayed at 5 months and that helps tremendously.

I also agree with Kate that at their age they are probably marking. Also, poop will never be fully trained, IMO, and that gets better with age and when they are fixed.

 

[Imbrium]

have you tried having litter boxes for them in their outside home as well? that consistency may help.

 

[Troller]

My rabbit was indoors, so my experience wont help you much. I'm proud to say Conan learned on the very first day. There were a few marking incidents but overall I cant say I litter trained since I really did nothing. However I did really study the subject before hand and had everything ready so maybe that helped.

 

[BugLady]

It took Rascal about two days. When I brought Appledot home, though, they had a "poop war" that lasted about a month!! They were very territorial about their litterboxes, and pooped in big circles around each box.

Finally they are over it, share the litterboxes, and I only find a few poops outside of it per day (usually because they leap out of the box like their tails are on fire).

I'd say your biggest problem, as others have pointed out, is that they can't learn when they spend most of their time going wherever they want outside. If you really want them well trained, they should make the transition to being indoor rabbits full time, with pee-proof flooring. Small area at first with one or two litterboxes, with a hay rack hanging right over them so they can eat their hay and poop at the same time. Then you can increase the area as they seem to be grasping the concept. And getting them neutered will help a lot.

Good luck!

 

[HolyHandGrenade]

Troller wrote:

My rabbit was indoors, so my experience wont help you much. I'm proud to say Conan learned on the very first day. There were a few marking incidents but overall I cant say I litter trained since I really did nothing. However I did really study the subject before hand and had everything ready so maybe that helped.

Our bunnies have yet another thing in common

 

[MiniLopHop]

Mine know what they should do, but still sometimes get territorial and go outside of the box. It is much better since I have stopped trying to get them all to play together. The four upstairs and the other two downstairs keeps everybun using the potty box faithfully. Houdini and Panda just can not be in the same space without triggering a huge poo bomb!

When they get a bit older they will need to be neutered to eliminate this sort of territory feud. Good luck.

 

[whitelop]

It took my bun about 2 weeks to learn to use the box, but she is also 2 years old. She does still poop outside the box, which is okay with me as long as most of the pee gets in there. Its like 9 out of 10 pees get in the box, to me thats pretty good.

I agree with everyone else, if you want them to be in then bring them into a smaller space with bunny proofed flooring. Maybe put an x-pen up with a tarp under it. With a litter box in it. Every time they go outside of the box, put it in there. Or like someone else said, put a litter box outside too.
Eventually they'll get it. As everyone else has said, having them neutered will help out quite a bit and they're really young still.

Plus, pee on the carpet isn't the end of the world as long as you catch it right as it happens and get it all out, then spray the spot with something to neutralize the smell.

 

[MiniLopHop]

Vineger works really well on pee, be it to clean the box or on the floor. I keep a spray bottle handy in the bun room to clean up misses (Sophie has a big butt and doesn't always get ALL the way into the box)

 

[Nancy McClelland]

Ours all are indoor bunnies and it only took a couple of days for them tu use the litter box to pee in. Still get the little round gobs everywhere, which is why I have a shop-vac.

 

[ldoerr]

I never litter box trained any of my rabbits. I just put a box in a corner with bedding in it and they use it. At first their might be a stray pee or two (I think with mine it was the box was too small and they were accidentally peeing over the side of the box). Mine have always just learned on their own. Even when I had them on wire floors, if I put a box in a corner they used it even if I did not intend for it.

 

[Hyatt101]

Is a baby bunny have less a chance of learning quickly than an older rabbit? My rabbit is a baby, and she's had the litterbox in her cage for awhile now, but still not much progress.

 

[KKH]

We got our BunBun when she was 3 months old and she had only ever been in small outside wire hutches. We have a two story outside hutch with a wire floor on the bottom level and a solid tray and nest box on the top level. She was also let out to run in the yard for a few hours every day. We just stuck a litter box in a corner in the top part and let her be. In no time she was going in the litter box when she was up top and in just one corner when she was on the bottom. When she is in the yard she goes in one corner of the yard.

We also have a small cage in the garage that she stays in when it is really cold, when she goes to "grandpas" because we are gone and that she has used while healing from a spinal injury. Again we just stuck the litter box in the corner and that was it she just used it. With the exception of a few weeks healing from her injury, but even then if we went out several times a day and placed her on it she used it.

We didn't do anything to try and train her. The bunny I had when I was a kid was the same way. He lived in an outside hutch and would come in sometimes. I just placed a litter box in one corner and he would use it. When we were inside I would show him the corner where the litter box was when we first came in and then he would use it.

Sorry that's not much help...the one thing that is always the same, with mine at least, is they like to go in the corner.

 

[d0tti]

Still having a little trouble - they tend to wee 8/10 times in the tray and poo everywhere, tray, floor, food bowl included. I have them inside tonighht because we have a storm, but i locked them in one room, two litter boxes in one in each corner, and there still seems to be lots of poo. i go in every half hour and pick them all up and throw them in the trays. Buh.