Why Is My Rabbit Peeing Over the Side of the Litter Box?
A litter-trained rabbit peeing outside the box hasn't forgotten anything. Its back end is over the edge, and a different box fixes that.
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The puddle is right beside the litter box again. An owner on binkybunny.com, a rabbit forum, kept coming home to one. For a long time they put it down to the rabbit being a brat.
Then one day they were standing there when it happened. The rabbit was sitting in the box, but her back end wasn't in it, and the pee went straight onto the floor of the cage.
The box had decently high edges, the owner said. It was also about twelve inches by six, and the rabbit sat at the very edge of it.
If your litter-trained rabbit leaves puddles beside the box, over the back of it or down the wall behind it, the box is probably too small, too low, or both. Owners, a care blog, a welfare site and a vet all give the same fix, and it's a cheap one.
Why is my rabbit peeing next to the litter box?
Because its back end isn't in it. Bunny Lady, a rabbit-care blog, puts it plainly: when the rabbit pees, its butt hangs over the side of the box and the pee lands on the floor.
The sides are the usual reason. The Rabbit House, a UK rabbit-welfare site, says many standard trays are too low, and a rabbit in one will urinate over the edge.
The rabbit, meanwhile, thinks it did everything right. In r/Rabbits an owner hunting for a box with tall sides said one of theirs always pees over the side even though he thinks he's in the box.
Back on the forum, one reply to the puddle owner was a box with very high sides. Their rabbit, it said, probably doesn't realise her aim is off.
How big does a rabbit litter box need to be?
Bigger than the one sold for rabbits. The small corner boxes marketed for them are too small, the blog says, and most rabbits refuse to use them at all. Pick one the rabbit can sit in completely and turn around in, which usually means a pan made for a cat.
The forum says the same in pounds. The first reply to the puddle owner was to get a larger box, and that a five-pound rabbit may need a large cat litter box.
A vet writing for The Vet Desk, Joanna Woodnutt, puts the whole spec in a sentence: large enough for the rabbit, with sides high enough that urine won't spill out, but still easy to jump into.
A large open cat pan with a high back is what all of that adds up to. The IRIS USA large open-top pan is one: a white oval pan with a tall wall around the back and sides and a lower open front. Any pan that shape does the same job.
A high back and a low front
The high back does the catching. The low front is for the rabbit that can't jump the way it used to.
The blog says a box with a lower entry helps an elderly rabbit with arthritis or weak muscles. The welfare site says the same with the shape: an older rabbit may do better with a tray that has a low front and a high back, so it's easy to get into. For an old or stiff rabbit, check the low front.
The forum's older thread, about a rabbit peeing in the corner of its cage and up the wall behind it, ran the same way. One owner had switched to a corner box with a high back a few weeks earlier. No more pee on the floor or the wall since.
Another recommended a high-back box or a covered one to stop the mess on the wall, though a third had heard that rabbits don't like the completely covered ones. An open pan with a high back keeps the wall clean without the roof.
For whatever still goes over, the blog puts a dog pee mat under the box as a urine guard.
When it's the rabbit and not the box
A rabbit that was reliable with its box and suddenly isn't needs a vet before it needs a new box. The vet's page says a rabbit that suddenly goes backward with its tray may have urine sludge or a urinary infection. A check-up with a urine sample is a good idea at that point.
The puddle owner's rabbit had been doing it on and off for a long time, and when they finally saw it happen, her back end was over the edge. That's a box problem.
Skip the small corner box in the rabbit aisle. Get a big cat pan with a high back that your rabbit can turn around in, like the IRIS USA pan, and put a pee mat under it.
Then stand there and watch the first time it goes in. That's how the puddle owner found out what was going on, and it's how you'll know the new box is doing its job.
