litter training help

my 2 buns have started messing there bedding has any one got any ideas how to stop this?

i have always used shavings in there litter tray as its cheap but what do you all recomend
thanks

Do you mean their bedding box/area? If so, a few people have problems with that, and there isnt really a solution.

I always have used wood shavings, but maybe you could cover it with a thin layer of hay, that way its similar to the bedding area? Best thing is to just move the box into the bedding area and just accept it. My buns dont use their bedding area to sleep anyway, ones took to pooing in there but weeing in his box, not sure why!

Only other thing is to move the poos/wet bedding into a litter box and hope the bun gets the hint, thats what i did with my indoor bun and now i only ever get 1 or 2 poos out of it in a week, shes amazing!!

I'm trying to get Oscar back into the litterbox again, but he tends to go all over, including the litterbox. I also put his dirty bedding into the tray and hope for the best. Somebody more knowledgable will probably give you some better advice.

My new rescue bun taught my original bun to use the bed area in their hutch as their toilet, which was ruining the wood as you can imagine (not to say made it disgusting to clean out!). After trying a couple of different things we decided to get a few cat litter trays (rectangular ones) and placed them in the bedding area covered in their normal bedding stuff. Only tried it out on Saturday but it seems to be working so far!

We decided to let them keep with their choice of toilet, was easier in the long run!
Are your buns indoor or outdoor?

I am having problems with this too, i keep puting nice hay in the bedding bit and then last night i put a small kitten litter tray in the bottom of the hutch and i am giving that a go. maybe if mine continues to poop on her hay in her bed i will get another tray and put it in there. Ruby just doesn't get the concept of poop in corners yet and she has about 6 wee corners but as soon as i put a tray in the wee corner she chucks it across the hutch!

Hi Beki, how old are your buns and have they been neutered yet? If not it's probably a mixture of territory marking and preferring to use the latrine in the bedding area because it feels safer here. Buns always feel vulnerable when on their latrine and so it's not uncommon to pick the bedding/closed in area of a hutch to do it. Are they hutch bunnies? When you put the litter tray in do you top it up with hay? most buns prefer to eat whilst they do their business! Is it urine you are having a problem with or droppings or both?

prettylupin thanks for your reply. Ruby is 15 weeks old and as yet un-neutered, the vet said to wait until she was atleast 5 months. I think she is getting a bit territorial too as she is scent marking everything when out of her hutch, She is a hutch bunny. I didn't put hay in my trays until this week but so far it doesn't seem to have made any difference. She seemed to go a bit mad also yesterday as she peed everywhere...corners? what corners! and she poos at random, apart from the poo section in her bed..or on top of her bedding should i say.

I don't think she actually sleeps in the bed though so maybe if i move the hay out of there and put it somewhere else and just turn the bedding section into the latrine? I ahve never seen her sleep in there, she sleeps i think in a shoebox i put in ehr hutch with some hay in it. I tried putting a tray in with the hay bedding but no, she likes going on the hay!

I am at the moment just putting it down to her being young and hopefully i can train her a bit better when she gets a little older and perhaps after spaying. It is a bit annoying though becasue i do like to bring her in the house in the evening and although i don't mind about the poops, she has peed on my cream carpet and left marks! it would be so much easier if she could go in a tray when she comes in, either that or i find some better carpet cleaner. with 2 cats and a rabbit though i think i may have to rethink cream carpets...when i have some money!

Hi Beki, yes your vet is right really about not wanting to spay her until 5 months. Some vets will do it earlier but generally it is considered safer to wait until female buns are atleast 5 months so that they are strong enough to cope with the Op as it is quite an invasive Op for female buns.
Unfortunately, as she is both young and unspayed you are unlikely ever to achieve reliable litter training with her now. Some people get lucky, there is always an exception to the rule, but generally an unneutered rabbit of either sex, and particularly a young rabbit reaching adolescence, is going to be far too driven by hormones to be consistent in their latrine, as much of it will be marking territories and other hormone related behaviours.

I think that if she likes to use the 'sleepy' compartment mostly as her latrine then yeah, why not just put litter in there, or a tray, and move the bedding hay to the other part of the hutch for munching and dozing on for the time being so you waste less hay. Although perhaps a hay rack in the compartment would be a good idea so she can atleast begin to associate munching hay with being on the loo?
Don't forget when you bring her into your home, everything is new and unfamiliar and exciting and she's bound to want to mark it all with urine and droppings. I think you're just going to have to put up with it and hang on until she's spayed which I appreciate is annoying, although things could easily change at any time, her litter habits are unpredictable so could equally suddenly settle down, but I do think it is unlikely. I'm sure it will definitely settle down once she's been spayed. There is no reason not to persist with the litter training between now and then, it won't do any harm as long as you don't make it too much of a negative association, make the tray a fun place to be, yummy hay, treats etc. She may not catch on now but once spayed you can train her properly and any positive associations you make with the tray now should hopefully reinforce her litter habits for the future