How can I stop my rabbit dropping territorial marks?

Question

I keep a male rabbit together with a (female) guinea pig in a cage. (They get along very well.) The bunny has that annoying habit of scattering everything in and around the cage with those brown liquid droplets. As a result, everything closer than a meter is dirty, and are hard/impossible to clean from the wall or the carpet.

Now this issue could be somewhat solved by enclosing the cage in plexiglass and cleaning it weekly, and that's half of the plan the plan. The problem is the other half: when I take him out to walk in the room, he immediately starts marking the territority, and there're brown drops everywhere.

How could I make him stop this? I'd like a natural way (i.e. no surgey), but every suggestion is welcome.

Things to consider:

• Nor the rabbit and the guinea pig have been neutered.
• I don't want to seperate them. They got used to each other's company, and especially the pig gets somewhat upset when the rabbit is missing. There's no place for one more cage too. Also, the pig needs company, and
• Getting yet another pet is something I'd like to avoid.

There's a picture of the result. "Luckily" I haven't cleaned this part of the furniture behind the cage for two weeks. (The lower piece of raw wood, protecting the wall during the past months, absorbs the drops leaving the "salt" behind, and can't be cleaned.)

Answer 1

The stains look like urine.

Rabbits and guinea pigs can be great friends, I doubt the relationship has any bearing on the behavior. You don't need to change anything between them.

Dark colored urine in rabbits is not unusual; it can vary from a light pink to a dark brown. A sudden change to dark color is grounds for a visit to the vet. Long term dark urine should be mentioned to your vet during a regular visit.

Unfortunately male (and sometimes female) rabbits will spray urine as you describe. This is particularly notable in young and/or unaltered (not spayed or neutered) rabbits. It normally stops with in about 30 days of spay or neuter.

A rabbit that has full access to the area all the time is unlikely to continue this behavior.

For occasional access: Leave some poops around. Rabbit poop is the least gross product (liquid or solid) of pretty much any animal. Your bunny most likely will feel that their property is secure if they find their own poops marking the area. This may mean harvesting poops from the litter box to place strategically before letting them roam.

See Related; How do I discourage rabbits from spraying?