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To Pee or Not to Pee…A Litterbox Guide for Bunnies and Humans
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I have a big butt. Everybunny says so. I don’t mind. I think it gives me a Porsche-like physique. Only problem is it interferes with my use of the litterbox. Sometimes I miss. That is not pleasant, because Sable spends those days going around calling me PeePeeHead and Kayn’t Pee Between the Lines. For those of you who are new to the world of House Bunnies, you should know that litterbox training comes very easily to most of us. Even boy bunnies can do it…once they’re neutered at least. Before then, they have a nasty habit of aerial spraying. Good news is, it’s just a snip snip here and a snip snip there and they pee like normal bunnies. But I digress. If you want a bunny to pee in a box instead of on your rug or on your mattress, here’s what you do. Go get a nice expensive silk oriental rug. The rarer the better. Put it in the general area in which your bunny resides. Within moments, she will be doing her business on the rug. Once that happens, take the rug to the dry cleaners and plop a litterbox down on the spot on which she chose to do her business. Of course, you have to be selective in choosing the right kind of litterbox. For bunnies like me, wider is better. For a micro-bunny like Emmitt, any box will do. I figure you need twice as much space as the bunny takes up just sitting in the box. Especially if you have bunnies with pals. And here’s a secret if you have extra-large bunnies with extra-large butts. Rubbermaid makes wide storage bins with five inch sides. They are usually under five dollars. Next, you have your choice of litter. If you have money to burn, you might want to use the high-end fluffy paper-based litters. These range in price from ten to twenty dollars a bag. The litter is very soft which makes it nice for bunnies with delicate feet or recovering from surgeries, but the litter does not control odor and has to be replaced every 24 hours or your bunnies will rebel and go pee on your shoes instead. Then there are wood-based litters and pelleted paper-based litters. These are nice too and do a better job of controlling odor. Just make sure you don’t use pine or cedar. Then there is my personal favorite. Wood-stove pellets. These are made from oak so they are completely safe. They control odor beautifully and absorb tons and tons of pee. They are heavy, especially when wet, but you don’t have to change them as often which is really nice. And here’s the best part. A 40lb bag can run as low as five dollars depending on where you live. Once you’ve got the litterbox all set up, you just wait for your bunny to do her business. If you have a particularly stubborn bunny (with a lot of room) who refuses to be restricted to one litterbox, give her two. If your bunny likes to pee outside the box (on purpose), confine her to a smaller area. Increase her territory as her litter habits improve. And if you have a bunny who pees outside the box because her butt sticks out over the side? Try a bigger box. If that still doesn’t work, here are some things that we have done. We get huge cardboard boxes from Sam’s Club (the kind that romaine lettuce comes in). The litterbox fits inside and the cardboard absorbs most leaks. In our case, we also use a Depends pad (bed-sized incontinence pads) under the box or under the litterbox or both. You will want to do this especially if the litterbox is on carpet. We have plastic floors so that helps a lot. The pads keep us from having puddles, so that’s nice. I hope our experience can help other litterbox-challenged bunnies. Remember, if you can’t pee between the lines, at least you can say you’ve left your mark. And by the way, things like Nature’s Miracle and Oxi-Clean work wonders at erasing those marks. |