Making a mess and messing up his cage - What's his problem?

[Tweetiepy]

Lately Peaches is being a very bad boy but he's being nice about it!

He's been dragging his litterbox (which is pretty much 3 or 4 times his size) to another spot in his cage (luckily he hasn't been dragging it so far that it will fall one level and REALLY make a bad mess) but he's been moving it at least a foot away from it's usual spot in a corner.

He will, however, still use that now bare corner to do his business - so I come home to food all over, his hay tray spilled and poop & pee in the corner (my goodness he poops a lot!).

He has plenty of toys (which he doesn't really seem to play with that I can see - apart from shredding his phone book) and lots of food & stuff for him to do but I don't get why he's moving his litter box. I've used 2 binder clips to try to keep it in place by clipping it to his cage but he's gotten it free. I've added another on the adjacent side (that may help I hope) but he seems very determined, freakishly strong and mighty motivated to move that box. It's not like he wants to move his litter to another corner to do his business, he just wants to move it!

He's almost 10 months old now - what's his problem?

 

[Nancy McClelland]

Sounds like our Bunnicula who is 4 years old. She wants things where she wants them, so it is a continual struggle controlling the mess.

 

[elrohwen]

You can put holes in the box, attach zip ties to the holes, then attach those zip ties to dog clips and use that to clip to the cage (so you don't have to cut the zip ties everytime you need to remove it for cleaning). That'll keep it in place!

I don't think what he's doing has anything to do with age or "being bad" - sometimes bunnies just find something they think is fun and they do it over and over. My girl is 3.5 years old and every once in a while will move the litter boxes around the cage daily for a couple weeks. At least they still pees in them wherever she puts them (usually) but it's kind of annoying! Haha.

As humans, we tend to think that making a mess means that our bunnies are mad or trying to tell us something, but really they just like to keep themselves entertained and what they think is entertaining is not always what we think is entertaining.

 

[AngelnSnuffy]

elrohwen wrote:

You can put holes in the box, attach zip ties to the holes, then attach those zip ties to dog clips and use that to clip to the cage (so you don't have to cut the zip ties everytime you need to remove it for cleaning). That'll keep it in place!

Yep! We had to do this with our first bun. Then he would still lift it up backwards, but couldn't necessarily spill it out.