We got a male rabbit about 3 years ago and he added so much joy to our life and made us become rabbit people. Our male rabbit has always been clean since he became litter box trained. We loved having him so much that we wanted a house full of rabbits lol we joked about having 10 free roam rabbits!
He bonded with us and one of our dogs but after doing research we decided to get a female as a companion….after bringing her home we had her in an excercise pin to litter box train her and bond her to our male (which both instantly liked each other). The next day the mess our female made caused us to outline her whole pin in litter boxes and it felt we went from having 1 rabbit to having 4+ with all the mess by just adding 1 more rabbit.
I have health conditions that cause too much physical labor to be difficult and draining so soon I had zero energy for my hobbies that helped my depression. I haven't been able to do my hobbies since bringing her home and have been struggling most days feeling overwhelmed since I'm spending hours a day and all my energy cleaning up after her…..even after she became litter box trained and spayed she's still hormonal and even tries humping our male rabbit (who is neutered) causing him to be stressed and avoid her while she's going through her nesting behavior…..she wants to make a mess with all the hay, and dump out her water and pellets and also often pees and poops in the bowls which stresses out our male rabbit because he loves a clean area, with clean water and clean litter box.
Our rabbits are bonded and cuddle often together and our male hasn't had 1 case of GI stasis since they've been together. I love her so much even though she wrecks my life and health and she loves me also but not my husband (he holds her during nail trims so he just gets stomped at and bitten 😬😅). We need help after she's added so much stress to our life but yet I don't want to rehome her.
I've always believed that if you get a pet that they're like your child and you care for them the rest of their life. I've also never recommended rehoming a rabbit especially and never thought I would be considering it for my physical and mental health. She seems happy here but we need suggestions as we've just built a new litter box that we thought would fix her nesting behavior but she takes all the hay down from the rack to fill the litter box and their food and water bowl with it. She also has learned how to take the bowls out so she can get underneath in the storage area where she pees and poops and I can't keep up.
We've had her about 2 1/2 years and it makes me sad thinking about possibly rehoming her due to the stress she causes my body and mind to go through every day and our male prefering a clean box which she never allows. Anybody know how to stop her nesting behavior…. we've tried tunnels, activities, she always has chew toys but our baseboards are still her favorite, and dig boxes.
Also yes they're overweight but I have no choice since she throws a fit when there aren't pellets and yes she eats lots of hay and enjoys other veggies/ salad.
by Iworkwithmud