# Former litter trained bunny peeing and pooping outside his litter box



## bilko (Jun 6, 2016)

Hi all, it's been a while since I've been on this forum.

My bunny Lucky used to be litter trained very well. Therefore we allowed him to be a free roam bunny hopping up and down the 2 stories of our house. He is also desexed.

Then when we changed his litter box to a slightly bigger one a year or 2 ago as he was outgrowing his previous one, he started pooping alot outside his box. The box composition was the same, it had litter plus hay.

The pooping was very annoying, but since it was only poop we sucked it up and just cleaned up. But over the last 3 months, he has also been peeing outside his hutch. For some reason he always peed in the kitchen, much to the anger of my mother. To sort this issue I bought a baby gate 2-3 weeks ago to limit him to upstairs of the house. Thinking that would stop the peeing in the kitchen as he could not get downstairs. But I was wrong. Then I thought if I kept him in his hutch for most of the day, it would reiterate to use his litter box for peeing. But nope, despite being locked up for 16 hours or so straight, soon as I let him out and leave him alone for an hour or more to run around, he pees on the carpet. 

I am literally out of ideas on how to get Lucky to be litter trained again. I feel bad keeping him locked up for long periods as his hutch is a little small for him since he is now a 2 years old mini lop. But the stains on the carpet make me, especially my mother very angry. I could try and cut his area more with a play fence which I still have, but he is a very smart bunny who hates being restricted to a small area and always tries to escape. A lot of the times he is successful as I had to baby proof the baby gate so he could not escape it.

Anyway, hope to get some ideas from the forum as I am out and frustrated.

Thanks 

If things do not improve, I might be forced to give him away.


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## Aki (Jun 6, 2016)

There are two main possibilities here: either something displeases him/make him feel threatened which drives him to mark his territory (is the pee orange or redish? "marking pee" often is. does he also leave markers like piles of poops? Did your mother change the product she uses to wash to floor of the kitchen? Your rabbit might not like the smell...) or there is an underlying health issue. Pooping outside the litterbox is pretty common, but peeing is something else.
So, observing the rabbit and taking him to the vet to check there is no UTI or something might be a good place to start.


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