# Urinating and defecating in the nest box?



## trailman (Jun 18, 2012)

My NZ has had her first litter a week ago sunday. Started with 9 with two dead right away and found a third dead in the box. Ww have six healty kits right now. MY question is,  this is an all wood nest box and just in the past day or so she has been loading up the back two corners with poop and urine. The kids are to the front. Any idea of a reason for the change up? I'm making two more boxes with wire bottoms for my next two upcoming litters but right now we are having a what the hell moment.


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## DianeS (Jun 18, 2012)

Well, in my experience a little bit of that is OK, since some moms will eliminate during nursing times. But doing it on purpose when not nursing isn't good. She could easily urinate on one of the kits by accident, which could lead to it's death from getting chilled. 

If it were me I'd put a separate litterbox in the hutch with her, maybe she'll use that instead and leave the nestbox clean. I'd also clean out the nestbox more often to keep it dryer for the kits.


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## trailman (Jun 18, 2012)

This is an outside hutch, she normally uses the opposite corner


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## pennylove (Jun 18, 2012)

My rabbits are litter trained, but sometimes spontaneously "change corners," forcing me to move their litterboxes around. I'm not sure why they do it, and it seems very strange that a nursing rabbit would do it, but not impossible. I have noticed it happens more often if their litterboxes get especially dirty, so perhaps keeping the nest box cleaner would help? Just a suggestion. Good luck.


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## Bunnylady (Jun 18, 2012)

A lot of does will do this, it's one of the more annoying behaviors you'll run into. The doe uses her nest box as a place to rest, and makes a mess of her nest while she does it. Having a nest box that is only slightly larger than the doe helps, as does having a resting board in the cage so she has somewhere else to sit and give her feet a rest from the wire


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