Real rabbits - Minefield

This is typical of what greets me most mornings when I first get up and head out onto the sunporch to feed the bunnies before work. Missy and Freckles live in the white lattice pen that you see there, but Boomer and Cricket are loose at night. I used to have a makeshift fence to keep the big bunnies from getting too close to the other pen, but I got tired of hopping over it and bruising my shins so I took it down. This is the result of that choice. Instead of hopping a fence I have to walk this minefield, sleepy and barefoot.

Rabbits are territorial and those that live close together, like mine do, need to mark their territory, just like a dog does outside. When I had the barrier up, the Flemmies would mark the *fenceline* but that was easy to control by placing a litterbox in front of it. Despite the two litterboxes in this tiny area, the Flemmies still feel the need to leave poops everywhere else.

Thank goodness they're easy to clean up and make good fertilizer. I always have plenty of it! Bunnies are very efficient recyclers.

Just so you don't get the impression otherwise, these bunnies are box trained, just not on that side of the room! They keep their own pen very clean. Peeper, who lives alone in a different room, has perfect litterbox habits, and never poops anywhere but in one of her boxes. The key to that is that she doesn't feel any competition or the need to make a point of her ownership of the space. It's all hers and she knows it!