Please help - Rabbit and Cats (Poops and more!)

[ZoChiff]

Hello,

I've recently taken a rabbit in from a friend and I just need help trying to figure out how to manage my new bunny and cats. I'll try to keep this as short and to the point as I can.

So brief background. I've had my two female cats for 4 years and recently a friend came to us wanting us to take in her female rabbit (2 years) who recently lost her male bunny partner. She was indoors, then outdoors when he past away and we've taken her in and keeping her indoors but will let her in the garden from time to time soon.

When we took her in, we let her out in our spare room downstairs with her cage in the room. She was adapting to her surroundings super quick and is very friendly and didn't seem scared at all. So we thought we'd open the door and let the cats come in and see how that goes, the cats were just mega scared of her and for the first few days wouldn't even come downstairs and she had the run of downstairs, the cats do come downstairs now and we're the 2nd week in and they seem to be doing ok. They'll sniff each other but the cats will soon run away and bunny seems to chase the cats as soon as they go near her and if they go into her room, she'll chase them out a lot of the time.

We have a spare room upstairs which has the cats litter trays in and tumble dryer. I noticed last night rabbit droppings in that room and in one of the little trays we have, then later on downstairs I noticed one of the cats has got into the bunny cage and done a poop but then this morning the same litter tray that had the bunny poop upstairs, also had a cat poop. So weather the cats just didn't notice? :-/

We had the bunny on the sofa last night for a cuddle and I think she got excited and started jumping all over us and then we noticed on a blanket I had over me she'd done a wee and a few poops! :-(

My problem is I don't want two rooms in the house just for pets, we want to do something with the spare room downstairs which currently houses our rabbit but I don't know if moving her cage out of there now will stress her out and It does smell, we try and clean it out currently twice a week but I didn't realise how much bunny wee smells and also in the other end of the room from her cage is a litter tray that she also uses with a few poops on the floor around it and in it along with wee. I could move that upstairs and have a room of just litter trays but I don't know if this would confuse matters? Do they need their own space ideally?

I don't really want to have the bunny outside but I think it might be a better option to stop smell and give us our space back and just let her in from time to time??

I'm just really not sure how to manage my house. Ideally I'd want the bunny to have free-range of the house along with the cats and minimize smell and poops everywhere. Oh and bunny also eats the cat biscuits and I don't know if that's really bad?

I'm just struggling managing the three animals but I know people do it and have more animals and I don't want to give up on her. So any help and advice appreciated!

Oh and I found out the other day that she hasn't been spayed. So I'm looking into getting that done.

Thanks x

 

[Zoobec]

Hi, and welcome to the forum :wave: Once she is spayed this should reduce the smell and also help a lot with litter training, it will also remove the risk of her getting uterine cancer which kills 80% of unspayed does. Rabbits shouldn't have access to cat food, or cat litter other than the paper based or wood pellet cat litter, and also personally I would not leave a cat and a rabbit together unattended. I have a house rabbit, and my cat is very wary of him, but even so I don't leave them together. My rabbit free ranges in his own room, he doesn't have a cage, he also has access to the stairs and landing, and comes out when we are there to supervise. I would clean out the litter tray daily, it shouldn't smell. I use 2 litter trays in my house rabbits room, he has woodpellet cat litter in them, with hay on top. Some people use puppy training pads in the litter trays, or newspaper. The rwaf recommends a minimum of a 6ftx2ft hutch with a permanently attached run of 8ft x 4ft, or an equivalent sized enclosure http://www.rabbitwelfare.co.uk/ahutchisnotenough.htm If you do put her outside, you will need to wait until the weather is warm at night, as the temperature change would be bad for her. And she would need a rabbit friend ideally, if she is outside so she doesn't get lonely.

 

[o-Chloe-o]

Hello! Welcome! A few years ago I had a similar situation, I had an indoor bunny and also a cat. My cat Tinsel was very wary of bunny - Jessica but after a while they were OK but I would still never leave them unsupervised together... Do your cats have access to outside, and if so can you start training them to go to the toilet out there somewhere? We did this so our cat no longer had a litter tray indoors.... They really should not be able to access each others litter trays! I hope things settle down soon! As Zoobec said though if you are considering putting her outside, she would need a friend and a nice big home! I have 2 outdoor bunnies now and 3 cats!! I do miss having bunnies indoors though, but things are less complicated xxx

 

[ZoChiff]

Hi,

Thank you both for your replied and warm welcome

My cats are indoor only and so not really an option for them to litter outside. I like the idea of the rabbit having a room instead of cage indoors. We need to sort out our spare room put could possibly have a few littler trays in there and make it her room plus something else. We currently put her in her cage at night and she hates it, this is because we've just got a lot of stuff in the spare room we don't want her eating but once it's clear this should be fine.

We'll put the cats food upstairs in the litter room and just make sure the rabbit doesn't go upstairs, that way she'll be away from cat food and litter.

Good to know the smell should reduce once she's spayed! I am hoping that'll make an all round positive difference. I would love to have all the animals in the house together. I think we just need to adjust and see what works. When we first had the cats it was different and we had to adjust to that and what they need etc.

We'll get there! Thank you xxx