Toilet Training Bunny in a New Cage

Question
Hello,

I just bought my bunny a new, bigger cage, but now he doesn't know where to pee and poo! He use to go to the bathroom in the same one corner of his old cage, but in his new cage he is peeing all over the place.

His old cage had a wire bottom, so it didn't matter as much if he peed in the wrong spot since it would just flow to the bottom tray (he didn't have a litter box either, he would just go in the corner and it would fall to the bottom). His new cage has a plastic bottom tray and I've put a litter box in the same corner. I filled the litter box with litter pellets. I filled the rest of the cage with hay on one side and bedding on the other side. His food and water are on the opposite side of the litter box.

Everytime I check on him, there's a spot of pee somewhere other than his litter box! I don't mind the poop as much since it's dry and easy to clean, but the pee wets everything so I have to change all the hay and bedding, which is such a waste. His bottom also gets wet and dirty :(

He's already over two years old. Is he too old to retrain? What can I do to help him?

Please let me know, thanks!

Answer
Hi,

part of it is marking a new cage as his.  Part of it is he hasn't been litterbox trained before so he doesn't know or isn't thrilled yet about the litterbox.

You don't mention if he's neutered or not.

Here's my idea for you.

Put down expendable old cotton towels on the bottom of the cage where he'll sit and rest.  They will absorb pee and every couple days you need to swap them out with new towels.

Put hay in the litterpan so that he has a reason to go in there.  You have to give him a reason to go in there.  Rabbits love to eat and drop pellets, etc, in the same place.  If that's where he has to go to eat hay, that's where a good amount of pee and poop will wind up.  And he will get into the habit of usingthe litterpan.

Also get the biggest litterpan you can for him, comfort and space is a big deal.  A big cat litterpan is great because it gives you a lot of room for hay along one side while still giving him a lot of room for him to go.

Putting hte hay in the litterpan frees up more space for him to relax and stretch out, and I would suggest giving him a hidey box (or making one) on the opposite side of the cage of the litterpan.  But if he's neutered eventually he will probably stop marking all over outside the pan, because he will want to not have to rest in that when he eats mostly in the pan and goes the most, there.  He may still pick one little other place to go once in awhile, but not what you're seeing now.  If he's not neutered he'll continue to mark all over.  This can only be reduced by having him neutered by a good rabbit vet (not all vets are good with rabbits).