go to the bathroom on the floor

Question
Hi.  I have a 2.5 year old bunny that lives in the house and has mostly free
range in the house.  He has a litter box area in the kitchen and has never had
a problem with going to the bathroom outside of it.  Yesterday and today my
husband found that he had gone both poop and pee in the guest room, which
is pretty much his "hang-out" room.  He is still very loving and upon visual
inspection there is nothing that appears "wrong".  We are concerned about
this behavior and wondering if he may be sick and we just can not tell?  His
poop appears normal, not smaller or strung together.  I guess we are mainly
wondering whether this could be a behavioral thing or if we need to take him
to the vet?  Thank you so much!  Julia

Answer
Dear Julia,

Several questions come to mind:

1.  Is he neutered?

If not, then this could be related to hormones and marking behavior.   But even neutered bunnies sometimes mark, so...

2.  Have there been any recent changes in the household?  Did someone use the guest room?

If so, he may well be re-establishing himself as "boss" of the room by marking it this way.

Try putting a litterbox in the area where has has started to do his biz, and he may simply start to use that one.  It's very difficult to break a bunny of an area that he's decided to use as his own, though there are ways.

Finally, is he showing any signs of lethargy, discomfort, straining to urinate?  This could be related to a urinary tract problem:

www.bio.miami.edu/hare/urinary.html

that's making him too uncomfortable to jump in the box.  A good rabbit vet will be needed to see if this is the problem:

www.rabbit.org/vets

Hope this helps with some ideas, for starters.

Dana