velveteen
Member
We have a dwarf cross bunny, who is approx 8 months old. We rescued him from euthanasia as a breeder brought him to a vet clinic to be put to sleep due to an abscess on his eye (vet thinks it was simply caused by a bit of hay or something similar poking him in the eye) The clinic did not want to euthanize, and they looked after him with eye drops until healed and we took him in at approx 7 weeks. I think that they got him at about 4 weeks, so very young! He is now semi blind in that eye.
I have always been feeding him correctly as I did a lot of research online and we take him to a rabbit savvy vet, who can confirm his diet has been fine.
Approx 3 months ago his cecotropes started to go mushy. They are like toothpaste consistency and have no grape like appearance as they should.
They are also not quite as dark has they used to be. I will note that Winston has a keen interest in food and is happy/inquisitive/active - nothing has changed other than his cecotropes.No weight loss, is in healthy range. He is still eating about 95% of his cecotropes, even though they are not looking normal. His normal pellet poops are fine.
He always was a hay eater.. and his diet consisted mostly of hay (oaten, timothy not available where I live) and a very small amount of alfalfa as a treat (i mean a tiny half handful every few days), veg such as asian greens, small amount of carrot, celery leaves, cilantro and other fresh herbs.. and he used to eat small amounts of pellets.
I am assuming it all changed after he was administered antibiotics for a skin legion/reaction he got from calici virus vaccination.. as things changed after that. I understand their gut can be upset from antibiotics easily.
Since then, our rabbit savvy vet has done a fecal test and found higher than normal levels of yeast. They put him on another dose of antibiotics which solved the problem, until about a week or two later the cecotropes went mushy again.
I have tried the hay/water diet and this always fixes the problem. BUT AS SOON as I reintroduce anything other than hay the mushy poop returns.
I don't want to keep putting him back on anti biotics as that is surely going to do more harm than good. It has been weeks now where he is on only hay/water (with a few days where i have reintroduced small amount of veg, but it always ends up having him back on hay/water)
I don't want to keep doing the hay/water thing for too long out of fear he is not getting enough nutrients from such a simple diet.. I need some help from anyone who can shed some light on the situation!!
Latest advice from vet was hay/water for a week and then introduce tiny tiny bits of veg back in slowly, that maybe the problem was that I was reintroducing veg at a too high a level...so I tried a small amount, such as one disc of carrot or one half leaf of asian veg... even that did not seem to work.
Can anyone suggest a type of veg to start with? I have cut all pellets from his diet for the last month as I know this is a sure guarantee his mushy cecotropes will return.
Any advice is appreciated!
* update - I thought it could be because he was taken away from his mother so young, his gut is unstable... but he used to eat all the foods I stated at the beginning of this post with no problems.. so this why I was assuming it was the antibiotics..
I have always been feeding him correctly as I did a lot of research online and we take him to a rabbit savvy vet, who can confirm his diet has been fine.
Approx 3 months ago his cecotropes started to go mushy. They are like toothpaste consistency and have no grape like appearance as they should.
They are also not quite as dark has they used to be. I will note that Winston has a keen interest in food and is happy/inquisitive/active - nothing has changed other than his cecotropes.No weight loss, is in healthy range. He is still eating about 95% of his cecotropes, even though they are not looking normal. His normal pellet poops are fine.
He always was a hay eater.. and his diet consisted mostly of hay (oaten, timothy not available where I live) and a very small amount of alfalfa as a treat (i mean a tiny half handful every few days), veg such as asian greens, small amount of carrot, celery leaves, cilantro and other fresh herbs.. and he used to eat small amounts of pellets.
I am assuming it all changed after he was administered antibiotics for a skin legion/reaction he got from calici virus vaccination.. as things changed after that. I understand their gut can be upset from antibiotics easily.
Since then, our rabbit savvy vet has done a fecal test and found higher than normal levels of yeast. They put him on another dose of antibiotics which solved the problem, until about a week or two later the cecotropes went mushy again.
I have tried the hay/water diet and this always fixes the problem. BUT AS SOON as I reintroduce anything other than hay the mushy poop returns.
I don't want to keep putting him back on anti biotics as that is surely going to do more harm than good. It has been weeks now where he is on only hay/water (with a few days where i have reintroduced small amount of veg, but it always ends up having him back on hay/water)
I don't want to keep doing the hay/water thing for too long out of fear he is not getting enough nutrients from such a simple diet.. I need some help from anyone who can shed some light on the situation!!
Latest advice from vet was hay/water for a week and then introduce tiny tiny bits of veg back in slowly, that maybe the problem was that I was reintroducing veg at a too high a level...so I tried a small amount, such as one disc of carrot or one half leaf of asian veg... even that did not seem to work.
Can anyone suggest a type of veg to start with? I have cut all pellets from his diet for the last month as I know this is a sure guarantee his mushy cecotropes will return.
Any advice is appreciated!
* update - I thought it could be because he was taken away from his mother so young, his gut is unstable... but he used to eat all the foods I stated at the beginning of this post with no problems.. so this why I was assuming it was the antibiotics..