house bunny advice needed

hi, hope someone can offer me some advice as im running out of ideas with my bun.

He is about 4/5mths old and was an "unwanted" from pets at home, hes used to hustle and bustle, but hes not a cuddle bun. He lives in our front room in a 2 tier indoor rabbit cage. We had him castrated and he was litter trained in his cage within days. The thing im having issues with is that he refuses to use his litter tray outside of his cage. We had a seperate one for out of his cage, but it was different to his cage one, so we changed it and made them the same. But he point blank refuses to use it and wont even put his pellets in there. I have a small sod whos just started crawling, this has become so much of a problem we cant let him out of his cage any more. I know theres always going to be the rogue pellet, but peeing every ware is doing my head in. and im scared that i wont notice it and not clean it.

Im desperate for anyone that can help me, becouse as it stands my poor little bun isnt getting much freedom

had similair problems with our bun, just would not go back to his cage to wee, we think he hated his cage as he associated it with being locked up.

we reduced his free space, so maybe use a puppy pen around his cage , so he has more space but still near his hutch and tray and slowly increase his space. always feed him in the cage so he has to keep going in there. maybe every half hour shut him in there for 5 mins,

i think the key is to make him feel good about his cage and not hate it

I think Neill's idea is a good one, maybe you could line the bottom of the pen with lino initially until he gets the hang of jumping back in his cage for weeings. Also maybe an idea would be to attach the pen at night as well when he's in his cage so he has it like that all the time.

we just gave our bun too much space, he was either in a small cage or had the entire world to roam, maybe he was just too lazy to go back for wees or just got confused .

he needs an area that has a litter tray within strking distance, im sure he will get trained correct in the end, weve never had a bunny from a dozen or so that didnt.

Neill said:

we just gave our bun too much space, he was either in a small cage or had the entire world to roam, maybe he was just too lazy to go back for wees or just got confused .

he needs an area that has a litter tray within strking distance, im sure he will get trained correct in the end, weve never had a bunny from a dozen or so that didnt.

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In my experience with mine, they've all got it, but one (Nutmeg, who else?!) takes a long time to stop marking a new area. She'll mark every piece of blanket, every corner of the room, near every object to start with and then gradually it starts to lessen until she only does the occasional wee in the corner for instance.

Thanks for your replies guys, iv been looking at pens on ebay and was considering this as an option. The thing thats baffaling me though, is hes happy to wee next to his tray, so i move it a tad, then he moves his peeing a tad and its a visiouse cycle, untill tonight that his when he decided to pee all over my sons play mat. I know hes not got issues with his tray as hes happy to use it inside his cage

I found Nutmeg would pee by the tray if I hadn't cleaned the outside, the outside smelt of some other bunny or thing and so she was marking it.

Well I had the same problem. This is what I did: I put treats and hay in the litter box and TAH DAH! Works like magic. Well it didn't happen right away but it worked. So while he was eating he went to the bathroom. Hope this helps!

Do you have hay in the litter trays? How big are the litter trays?

If they aren't already, try having large litter trays (50x30cm or bigger) with lots of hay in, and confining the hay only to the trays.

Can he easily get back into his cage, or is it a bit tricky? Those indoor cages can often be tricky for rabbits to hop back into, and they can be put off by hitting their legs on the cage. The two tier ones are trickier still as due to the ramp there is very little space to maneuver inside the cage, and I think Neill has the right of it when he says that perhaps the bun is disliking being shut in all the time and so wants to stay away from it - as the none of the indoor cages I've seen meet the RSPCA's or Rabbit Welfare Association's (RWAF) welfare guidlines, all the ones I have seen are less than the reccommended 6ftx2ft.