The floor is a toilet

Hello

I’m wondering if anyone else has had a bun suddenly refuse to use their bathroom? If so, I’d appreciate some advice please.

I have an indoor couple, female 8 yo spayed and her younger male neutered husbun. She has always been excellent at using her litter tray and, other than a few territory poops/wees over the years, she’s pretty much stuck to doing her business in her bathroom and kept it pretty tidy.

About 2 years ago, we (the hoomins) went on holiday for the first time and had someone come over to feed them and refresh their area. When we returned, it was like she was punishing us for leaving by trashing the joint and going to the toilet everywhere but her bathroom.

After this had continued for several weeks we made some changes to the materials used in her litter tray to see if it would improve things but it didn’t help. We took her to the vets to be checked out and got the all clear.

No matter what we tried, she persisted with her dirty protests. Of course, then her husbun decided to join her and neither of them had any interest in using the bathroom. We then had to replace the carpets it got so bad.

2 years on and things haven’t changed. She’s had a few more checkups, all clear, we’ve tried new bathrooms, changing their positioning, increasing the number, all sorts but nothing has worked.

We ended up having to replace all carpets with wooden flooring and now we have a new problem with her weeing on the floor and it soaking into her hocks and bum area. This is obviously very bad and we need to help her to clean the area regularly as she can’t fully manage it herself.

We’ve tried using puppy pads to help with soaking it up but they both try to eat them. And I mean they properly eat them, like I’ve placed a layer of banana in front of them and they haven’t been fed for weeks.

So I’m at a loss. She’s healthy and happy but her refusal to use bathrooms is causing problems that could potentially lead to sores around her hocks and bum. So I’d really appreciate any advice people might have on what to try next.

Thank you

(Ps we haven’t dared to go on holiday again since)

Have you tried having litter trays in the areas they are using the most? Larger trays like underbed storage boxes work well. Do you have hay in the litter trays?

Hello, thank you for replying - what a beautiful brood you have

Yes, we have multiple bathrooms of various shapes and sizes including cat litter trays, storage boxes and the base of a huge cage. All are filled with hay at one end.

We’ve tried placing them wherever we find a wee but she seems to go ahead and find a new place to wee on the floor. If she can’t find floor, she will physically move the bathroom to get to the floor.

She will get in the bathrooms but only to play in them. She’ll dig all of the contents out and when there are multiple bathrooms out it’s like one big playground for her.

I wish I had more advice but bumping this for you as I can imagine it's quite stressful and I'm sure someone will have some more ideas.

Thank you, I appreciate your help.

Fortunately she’s a very relaxed rabbit so cleaning her isn’t a huge struggle but obviously she would prefer to not have us pick her up and would rather do it herself so the sooner we can get to that point the better.

We've definitely had the revenge peeing be a problem but it's always settled down after a few weeks of whatever we were being punished for.

Would she pee on vet bed?

You can put a puppy pad underneath it and the pee would be sucked through. But you would need to wash often as the smell and bacteria would still be a problem.

Has she got any loos that don't have a hop to get in?



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