New here, new to bunnies!

[Kelly6485]

Hello I just got my first bunny about a week and a half ago, it appears to be a "he" , we have named him Jimmy. I think he is pretty young, and loves to have his head petted. Jimmye is going to be an indoor bunny, my husband has pretty severe allergies to dogs and cats, but not rabbits, so this is a great alternative to a cat or dog for our family. We have been trying to litter train, as soon as I saw his preferred corner to pee in, I added a box. He is currently contained to a cage unless he is out to play with us, the cage is big, the baby is small so I don't feel too bad about him staying in there until litter box habits are good! I do plan on having him neutered next month. Is it normal at this point to pee in the box, but only get about 75%-80% of poops in box? Also, he is absolutely adorable, but unlike any bunny I have seen before, any guesses on breed/breed mix would be great! Right now he is the size of a large hamster or small guinea pig.

 

[RavenousDragon]

The poops outside the box are VERY normal. Rabbits have high metabolism and often have difficulty controlling their poops. That might be something you guys can never quite get 100%, but know he's trying. Luckily, poops are easy to sweep up! Neutering will also help keep his bathroom habits up.

 

[Nancy McClelland]

:welcome1

 

[Aki]

Welcome! Yeah, it's normal. Like RavenousDragon said, getting the hang of the litterbox is pretty easy for pee, but it's a lot less reliable when it comes to poop. Intact rabbits have more trouble with this than spayed / neutered rabbits. I'll add that, in my experience, females are a lot cleaner and more reliable with the litterbox than males - my males have always tended to pee against the side of the litterbox which will make the pee leak OUTSIDE of it and poop wherever (figures, uh...). Of course, you also have individuals who have more or less trouble with this and care more or less about being clean. Right now, I have a female who is a total neat freak and a male who is the most disgusting laziest rabbit ever... he barely washes himself and sometimes the female sniffes him with a repulsed look on her face before cleaning him... ^^'
Still poops are easy to clean up. For me, the real ennemy when it comes to cleaning after rabbits is hay. Hay gets everywhere, goes inside the small spaces inside hardwood floor, get stuck on your clothes and hair... and fills up the vaccum cleaner bags really fast. Hay is the worst and you need to have a big pile of it accessible to your rabbit all the time, so you have to learn how to live with it XD.

 

[Blue eyes]

He does look very young. Any idea on his actual age?

My experience with males has been the opposite of Aki's so don't despair. I actually tend to prefer males (rabbits! :big wink: ) and of the 10 that I've had, none peed outside the box (or over the box).

I happen to be allergic to cats too -- that's why I turned to rabbits.

Welcome to the forum!!

 

[RavenousDragon]

Yeah, my female here is also way grosser than my male about litter box habits.

 

[Kelly6485]

He does look very young. Any idea on his actual age?

My experience with males has been the opposite of Aki's so don't despair. I actually tend to prefer males (rabbits! :big wink: ) and of the 10 that I've had, none peed outside the box (or over the box).

I happen to be allergic to cats too -- that's why I turned to rabbits.

Welcome to the forum!!

I have NO IDEA at all about age, I picked him up at a dirty farmers market animal auction, he was there with 2 siblings, and I just couldn't resist him. This whole bunny thing is new to me, I personally believe he was too young to even be away from his mother :nono

 

[Kelly6485]

:welcome1

I think I must just be attracted to poop machines, my only pets are chickens and this bunny :rollseyes

 

[mark]

Your bunny is adorable! Welcome! We are new bun owners as well, this site has been a great resource.

We keep our bun in a puppy run type of thing, rather than a cage, so she has lots of room to move around. We open it up and let her run around the living room whenever we are home and able to keep an eye on her.

Our pees in the litter box always, she did so right away without us having to do anything. She prefers it I guess. The poops are as you said probably about 85% in the box, 15% everywhere else. In our case, we have one of the "outside the bars" kind of hay feeder, which we positioned so she sits in the litter box to eat hay. They tend to poop while they eat hay, and this has kept the majority of the poops inside the litter box.

Good luck - love your bun and have fun!

EDIT: P.S. they LOVE to chew on cords so be VERY careful about keeping them away, or they may be electrocuted! Be very careful about this.

 

[Nancy McClelland]

I posted a picture on the meme's here of a shoebox someone decorated and went all the way withit as "Poop Factory" and had it sitting on their bunny with only the head showing outside the "factory". I use the pic as my screensaver too--just hilarious.