Rabbits choice pooping locations

Question
Dear Miss Graham,

        I have a 6 month old min bunny and Im a little concerned about the places she sees as her bathroom areas. Now normally if left in her pen she poops all around without a specific area in mind, and when I allow her to run around again she "goes" wherever she wants. I was wondering if there was anything I can do to create a comfortable place for her to use the bathroom without having to get her a litter box. Could I maybe put wood shaving or hay in an area? Any advice would be appreciated. Thank you.

Answer
Hi Cyrena

If you leave the rabbits cage open and allow her only to hop around a small room, my rabbits taught themselves to go back to their cages to pee. It takes a little longer for them to catch onto the poop, but believe it or not, when they see you picking it up and putting it where you want them to go, it will eventually influence them to go there as well.
I use litter pans, but avoided the kitty litter and instead used layers of paper towel so the shavings or kitty litter didn't end up everywhere. I would use also the kitty litter liners for the litter box (with the paper towel/ newspaper underneath) and then all I would have to do is lift it out the liner everyday and replace it.
Keep putting her droppings in the area you want her to use and put her in the litter box, or cage. If she jumps out, that's ok, you are just trying to show her.
It helps them if they have this box right in the cage and whatever corner she prefers to use, keep moving the litter box until she chooses to use it. I went so far as to remove the bedding from the rest of the cage so that she had no choice but to pee where I wanted her to since there was no bedding and they most of the time, prefer to pee on something. If there are any clothes or mats on the floor then they might decide to pee on that instead. This worked for my two baby rabbits. The more they see you putting the droppings where they 'should' go, the faster they catch on. I would actually semi-toss them into the pan and it seemed to get the point across because they watched me and then started using the litter box.
That being said, once my bunnies were sexually mature (about 6 months), if I even held my male rabbit and walked into the females domain (once they were old enough that they had to be separated) she would start pooping all around her cage when normally she used the box exclusively. Males and females will poop and pee, even spray around their cages to mark their territory. Spaying and neutering almost always fixes this problem. Some females are defensive of their territory by nature and will growl and lunge at hands when you try to touch their bedding or move something. I had one extreme case where it was even if I tried to touch her food dish. It is normal behavior and you can avoid this by removing the bunny before handling the cage contents. Again, spaying should curb this behavior.