Driving me mad!

[wascallywabbit]

Hi all,

New to the site (see Introductions) and need some advice...

We've had Rascal since she was very young and up till recently she's been a house bunny. However she never really seemed settled inside so we've bouoght her a large hutch with attached run so she can come & go as she pleases.

When she lived inside, she used to scrabble a lot & preferred to sleep on bare plastic rather than any bedding material. Now she's in her new hutch, she's still doing the same (including the mad scrabbling) but now it's causing more of a problem - she has a litter tray in the run section which she used for a couple of days (having been litter-trained already) but she now won't use it, preferring instead to use the bedroom end of her hutch. However, she is continuing to empty all the bedding out of her hutch so is peeing on the bare wood floor of her hutch which is obviously difficult to keep clean. In addition to this all the bedding is ending up in the run and is blowing around the garden.

We've tried everything we can think of - different beddings, a litter tray in the bedroom end (which made it worse - she scrabbled for about an hour non-stop) and vetbed to line the hutch which she rolled into a ball and chewed.

HELP ME PLEASE!!!

Laura x.

 

[Estelle]

has she been spayed?

 

[Tamsin]

Try some/all of the following:

Line the bottom of the hutch with lino or vinyl floor tiles - make sure it's well glued down. That will make cleaning easier.

Unless you're somewhere very chilly, don't bother with litter for the bottom of the hutch. Use wood based non clumping cat litter for the tray and hay elsewhere.

Give her a digging box. A box or tray filled with soil which she can dig in. If it's practical in your garden you can sink a childs sand pit into the ground for safe, escape proof, tunneling.



Tam

 

[wascallywabbit]

Yes Estelle, she has...

Thanks for the advice Tamsin, will try all of them!

 

[FriskyClover]

She sounds like she is on her own. As she is spayed what about getting her a rabbit friend? Rabbits get very bored and sad on their own outside and a friend will help keep her occupied (rather than causing bedding trouble!).

 

[wascallywabbit]

We've debated this a few times but were wondering how difficult it would be to introduce another bunny at this stage? Also, as she seems to be a fairly stroppy bunny (although bizarrely extremely placid when held) whether she would be more likely to harm another rabbit?

 

[Maizy]

I have a VERY stroppy female called Dandelion. So much so that she has evicted her partner! She loves him when they are in the run together but won't have him in the hutch any more.:shock: Same thing with the scrabbling and she uses the bedroom for her toilet. She will have a litter tray in there though. I got my females within a fairly close timescale so they are all due for spaying at around the same time. She's next on the list after Phoebee (who was spayed Friday). I can only aford to have one done a month, so for the time being they are together in the run and then go home at night to separate hutches.:?
As Tamsin says, Lino squares are really good. I use them in all my hutches. Makes life much easier to keep clean and dry

 

[Isabel]

Hi, your bun is a cutie. Rabbits can pretty much be introduced at any stage. A rescue can normally help with the bonding as it needs to be done on neutral territory. From what I've read on here there is normally a rabbit to suit any other rabbit and there are only a very few instances where a rabbit has had to be on their own because they are too stroppy and they are usually extremely stroppy. I am no expert a but I do know that its best to keep buns together, it might even calm her down. Good luck with whatever you decide, and welcome to the forum

 

[Maizy]

meant tosay I'm hoping once spayed she will calm down, be less terratorial and Noah can go back home! All my other girlies are really happy with their OH's.

 

[wascallywabbit]

Hi all,

More help needed ...we tried the ideas above (except introducing a new bun cos we decided that just wasn't the right thing to do) - the bedroom end of Rascal's hutch is now lined with lino and she has hay at the other end. However, she is now using both ends of the hutch as a toilet and still not doing anything downstairs in the run bit. It's just getting so difficult to keep her clean, especially with the weather & cos she tries to get out as soon as you open the doors.

Other problems are:
1. She keeps throwing her food bowl downstairs.
2. My OH insists on keeping the run covered with tarpaulin as he doesn't want the wood to rot - can anyone confirm whether this is necessary, cos it makes cleaning her out a lot harder?
3. We've moved the run from concrete to grass but cos of our garden it's difficult to find a level bit - would she be ok on concrete?
4. (In advance) do people bring their rabbits back inside in Winter?

It's getting to the point now where we're considering moving her back inside, although this means a smaller cage for her & mess inside the house cos she throws everything everywhere, cos her being outside is causing so many arguments as to whose turn it is to do her & whose rabbit she is!!! I've even started to think about rehoming her, which I really don't want to do...

Any suggestions would be very much appreciated...

Laura x.

 

[judith]

Sorry you're going through the same as us. I'm no expert, so I won't try to advise, but I just wanted you to know you are not alone. We had Taffy - sweet boy, no trouble - for six months until we decided to get a female for him as a companion. A friend of my daughter had a lovely bun needed rehoming and we took her - thinking the name Messy came from the markings on her coat. :lol: :lol: :lol:
She goes to the toilet wherever she wants, won't have any bedding or litter in the hutch, throws the food bowl out so that everything lies in the run getting soaking wet and mushy and generally has things entirely her way.
They are on concrete because Messy digs through everything else and they seem quite happy. We let them out whenever we are with them in the garden to run around and eat grass.
Other posts will offer more knowledgable advice, I'm sure, but from experience I'd say you're just going to have to learn to live with her - and do lots and lots of cleaning out :lol: :lol: :lol:
Good job they're so gorgeous, isn't it!!

 

[wascallywabbit]

Thanks Judith, good to know we're not alone!

Think we will move the pen back onto concrete then, since that made things a fair bit easier...am also going to e-mail the company we got the hutch from to check about the waterproofing.

As you say, at least she's gorgeous...and I suppose I should also be grateful that she's not an untrained attack bunny like one of my mum's old rabbits (she could lay you open down to the bone and had to be handled wearing those big old-fashioned leather driving gloves that go up to the elbow!)

Laura x.

 

[kiri]

oh dear hope things improve. I have one very tidy bunny and one messy one. It took a while for geoff to decide where he wanted things to be and the toilet spot changed nearly every day. I went through so many different litter trays, bedding etc...
Anyway, I've just slabbed my run-Im finding it easier to clean than the grass already.
The tarp on your run. Use a good wood stain to prolong the life of the wood. Ive put perspex on the lid of mine so inside doesnt get to wet but also means I dont have to uncover tarp or sheeting then fix it back. Perhaps consider these for easier access.
Would a layer of newspaper on top of your lino help? I found that to do a daily clean I just roll up the mess in the newspaper and bin the hole thing putting another layer of paper out for tomorrow. Saves lots of brushing up poops and bits of hay etc.
Give up on sawdust(in my oppinion) its so annoying. Newspaper, hay, maybe some wood pellets but I dont even use those anymore they just get kicked around!
Give it some time. It took a lot longer than expected to get into my cleaning routine and for my rabbits to decide what goes where. Use one of the porceline bowls, theyre heavyer and harder to throw.
Also the jingle balls are great for rabbits that like to throw. Geoff loves it-he likes to make a mess, maddie ignors it shes the tidy one.
Long post, just thinking out load all the things I tried.

 

[Spacegirl]

We've debated this a few times but were wondering how difficult it would be to introduce another bunny at this stage? Also, as she seems to be a fairly stroppy bunny (although bizarrely extremely placid when held) whether she would be more likely to harm another rabbit?

I have just bonded an 8 year old stroppy madam to two other rabbits - and she had never been bonded before, so it definitely can be done
I would say this was an excellent option.

 

[wascallywabbit]

Thanks for the reply Kiri...

I've moved the run back onto the patio which is already making life so much easier! We've also removed the tarpaulin as the place where we got the hutch from managed to convince OH that the weatherproofing they put on will last for longer than the bun (especially if she carries on like this...little ).

Have also tried the newspaper idea...but surprise, surprise Rascal just shreds/moves/etc it in the space of a few minutes - has to have her own way!!! At the mo she has hay in a rack, a litter tray in the run with wood cat litter and lino in the hutch (just the bedroom end but soon to be extended since she's recently swapped toilet ends :roll.

Re the bowl - we do have one of the porcelain heavy ones...but she picks it up and lobs it as though it was a feather!!! Fortunately she's not done this since being back on the patio, as I'm not convinced it wouldn't break...

Rascal also loves toys...especially something we get her from P@H called a yoga ball. It's basically lots of willow balls, one inside the other, gradually getting smaller and smaller...she loves it!

Laura x.

 

[judith]

You seem to be looking on the bright side - what else can you do? What makes me laugh about our two is the way Taffy sits there like a doting long-suffering boyfriend with a resigned look on his face. He was our first bun, so she's trashed "his" hutch, rearranged "his" bedding, chucked out "his" food bowl but he just sits there as if to say "don't look at me, I just let her get on with it".
Before we got Messy he was a lonely, quite aggressive, quite unsociable boy and she's worth every minute of the hassle just for what she has turned him into. My 11-year-old daughter has gone from having one rabbit she used to cry about because she couldn't love him the way she wanted to, to having two friendly, nose-rub loving rabbits who lie down and let her stroke them.