strange behavior

Question
My female rabbits urinate in their food bowl.  Can you please provide me with an explanation for this very odd behavior.

Answer
Hi Donna

Are they babies or adult rabbits?  If they are babies or just young they like to hang out and sit in their food dish because apparently they think it makes a nice chair.  If they are adults they are either marking their territory or they don't like their food.  Are you sure its urine and not just water from the food dish?  I have seen them splash water from the water dish into their feed and it gets the pellets all wet and soggy and just makes a lovely mess that I have to clean up.  

Honestly I really don't have any idea why they insist on doing these things but they do.  I switched from feed dishes and water dishes along time ago.  I now use J-feeders that hang from the cages.  With a small clip of wire the feeder goes into the cage, you can pour the feed in from the outside and there is no possible way they can sit in them.  They are also easy to clean because most of them are made with wire mesh on the bottom that lets the dust out and they can be lifted right off the cage to take inside and clean.

As for the water dishes I have an automatic watering system.  They are quite expensive but boy am I happy that I have it.  No more toting 40 or 50 heavy crocks from the barn to the house every winter to unthaw.  You can buy water bottles.  Honestly water bottles are safer than dishes.  As long as you keep them clean (a good washing about once a week) and give them fresh water every day they generally keep germs away from your rabbits.

Even if your rabbits are indoor rabbits I still recommend water bottles and J-feeders.  It is easier to monitor how much they have been eating and drinking.  Dishes tend to spill, get dumped, peed in etc.  I think you get the point.

If your rabbits are not spayed spraying is very common, especially if there are other rabbits in the same habitat.

I hope this helped a bit.

Good luck

Pam