how to help bunny pick a pee corner?

[SnowyShiloh]

Our new foster girl is truly delightful but her litter habits leave a lot to be desired. Background: She's about a year-year and a half old, was just spayed within the past couple of weeks, and came to our home on Monday night. She is in a good sized dog crate in our bedroom away from other bunnies and their scents. In one of the corners there's a nice sized litter box with Yesterday's News. The Petco folks said she uses a litter box and she WAS peeing in the box the first night (though she didn't drink much the first night), but since this morning she's been tinkling in all of the corners. I went through half a roll of paper towels today cleaning up after her. She doesn't seem to have a favorite corner so moving the box doesn't seem terribly productive. She is the 10th bunny I've had and the only one not to pee in the litter box consistently, even my unneutered boys are/were impeccable. They were all so easy to train, even her babies that were only 6 weeks old when we got them So, a couple questions:

1) Could her hormones be causing her to do this? If so, how long until they subside?
2) Is she just marking her territory? If so, she'll stop once she's settled, right?
3) How can I encourage her to pick a corner and stick with it? I'm not opposed to giving her 2 litter boxes but one in each corner seems kind of odd.

If she's still doing this in a week or so we'll need to move her into some other kind of cage with a deeper base because the dog crate's sides are only about an inch tall and that's just not a good combo. We'll find a solution of course but I just kind of want to know what I can expect. Thanks so much!

 

[mdith4him]

Our new bunny was doing the same type of thing initially. We blocked two of the corners with one of those woven sea grass beds (http://www.bunnyrabbit.com/equipmentpix/GrassBed-RGP530.jpg). Maybe find something fairly stationary and put it in one or two of the corners?

 

[Bunnylova4eva]

Yep, I'd try putting say a dish in one corner, a toy in another and something else in another. That way, those are blocked. That's helped with my buns. Some of mine picked a corner righit away. Others, no.

 

[SnowyShiloh]

Well, Miss Fluffbutt has peed in her litter box ever since I posted! Not sure what was up with that. For about 16 hours she was just peeing in all the corners. Maybe she was waiting for me to make a post? Hopefully she continues to use the litter box, if not I will try putting things in the other corners that she can't tinkle on.

 

[Nancy McClelland]

Bunnies! Go figure. Spike used to hop in the box, but he was so close to the edge he'd hit the floor sometimes. Cured this by putting the litter boxes inside of cardboard boxes with tops and cutting a hole in both ends. They have privacy for their litter needs and a hide out too.

 

[OneTwoThree]

She might've just been marking her territory, she can probably smell the other buns

ETA- and just in case this is a magic thread, Lady poops all over, she needs to be litter box trained too!!!

 

[MILU]

Pretty good posts!

 

[SnowyShiloh]

Haha, good luck, OneTwoThree! Let us know if it works out

It was just odd because Nomi (bunny has a name now) did use the litter box for the first 12 hours or so, then didn't use it for about 12 more hours, then is back to using it. Silly girl! She's still using it now, phew. Pooping in it is another matter but I'd rather sweep up turds once a day than mop up urine.

I get the feeling Nomi has a flair for the dramatic. First the peeing thing, then she urinated on a wooden chew toy with red dye and her pee was bright red because of it. I was very alarmed when I sopped up bright red pee but it was SO red that I quickly figured out the toy had gotten wet! Then the whole her waiting for me to make this thread before she would stop peeing in the other corners...

Also, the day we brought Nomi home I bought her a Tidy Cats Breeze litter box on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B001E530FW/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20 I signed up for the subscription so it was $26 for the box, pee pads and pellets (which I'll be hopefully trading with a friend for more pee pads). I think it will work very nicely for bunnies and if it does, we'll get them for everyone else too!