Messy rabbit

Hello all,

My rabbit is becoming increasingly messy. She is a house bunny but has a hutch where she sleeps and eats. She has a litter tray in her hutch which she seems happy using some of the time. Whilst she never has any mishaps around the house she has adopted some unusual behaviour in her hutch. Firstly, she now digs in her litter tray kicking the litter everywhere. She has also started pulling all her hay out of the bowl, spreading it all over the floor of her hutch and then peeing on it. As a result I am wasting more hay than she eats as I have to keep throwing it away. She also poos, what seems like constantly, whilst eating her hay instead of stopping and getting in her litter tray. I have tried positioning her bowl closer to the litter tray to encourage her but this does not seem to stop her. Does anybody have any suggestions to stop this behaviour and encourage her to use her tray more/not pee on her hay?

Thanks

Kerry

Is she spayed?

By nature rabbits like to eat whilst going to the toilet, so she is not acting abnormally by going to the toilet in the hay. I would suggest maybe putting hay in her litter tray, or in a hay rack over the litter tray, to encourage her to eat and poo in the 'right' place.

Yes she is spayed.

Thanks for the suggestions - I might try a hay rack. I thought about putting the hay in her litter tray but didn't want to encourage her to eat the hay she had soiled!

She won't eat the hay she has soiled, don't worry. Mine tend to use one corner of their litter tray for pooing and eat from the other. what do you use for a litter tray?

At the moment just using a cat litter tray.

I find under bed storage boxes work brilliantly for litter trays, especially with lots of hay in. And then even if she does dig, it is unlikely to come out of the tray.