rabbit being really dull

Question
I just got a mini lop rabbit who is 8 weeks old. when he came , the cage i ordered for him had not arrived. I has to house him in a all cardboard box. I filled it with hay and barley straw , and also put a ceramic bowl of water and pellet food. I t was in this temporary accomodation for four days. I just received the cage ( all wire upper and plastic base tray) today . I also decided i will start to litter train him today too.
In the cardboard box, he pooed and wee weed in 3 corners of the box and ate the free hay and barley straw( i think he prefers the straw to the hay ....strange) In the new cage , i put a small litter box with straw as litter bedding for him at a corner and left him a bowl and also a bottle of water and a seperate bowl of pellets. I am afraid because he has not left the litter tray all day!!! He has only eaten some of the straw from the litter tray . He refuses to come down from the litter tray at all. He is sadly crouched in that one corner of the cage and has had no pellets of even water. I thought that the food bowl may look too low for him from the litter tray and so i put the food bowl on top of a yellow pages catalogue and moved it close to him ...still no difference. I have hand fed him a few treats , but i do not want him to become reliant on me hand feeding him.

I just want to know if i am fretting , and he will take his time to get used to the other parts of his new cage and start moving around and eating...or is he scared since this new cage is much larger than the old one? I have hung toys and even put hay in cardborad hollows to tempt him, but no difference. ( in the cardboard box, he could see nothing around him as the box was only open at the top.However, in this new cage, all sides are open. ) Pheww!!! i really thought he would like this new larger cage.

Thanks for any pointers.

N.B I have not put the bedding all over the floor of the whole cage as he would think that the whole cage is for litter and poo all over. I do not want to confuse his toilet  training.

Answer
Dear Ugo,

I just now found this question in the Question Pool, where another expert had placed it.  Sorry for the delay, but I did not receive the question directly, and have only now seen it.

It's normal for a rabbit to be nervous about change.  He is evolved as a prey species, and that means danger lurks everywhere, and he wants to be very sure of where he is and what's around him at all times.  Go ahead and place mats and bedding on the floor of his cage.  At the tender age of 8 weeks, he will not be reliably litterbox trainable yet, anyway.  He may develop good habits, only to lose them when he reaches sexual maturity and needs to be spayed (female) or neutered (male).

For tips on litterbox training, please see:

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

For information on healthy diet, which is critical to his health, please see:

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

If he's shy, here are instructions for getting him to trust you:

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

And for all the best and most accurate information about having a house rabbit, please see:

http://www.rabbit.org/care/new-bunny-index.html

Hope that helps!

Dana