5 1/5 week baby, poopy butt Imodium?

[squidpop]

One of my 5 1/2 week old rabbits has a poopy butt, the other 5 are fine. I would describe it as-- she has soft or loose stools and it sticks together and becomes a big blob around her butt - slightly stinky when I clean it off. She had it yesterday, I cleaned a big blob off her little but 4 times. This morning she had no more poo blobs on her butt, but this afternoon its happening again she had a big blob of soft sticky poo. She seems normal otherwise, still eating. The mother passed a several loose stools yesterday but it was followed by firm normal round poos.

I have imodium- would giving her some be jumping the gun a bit? Its the second day of her having a poopy butt.
I read here the dose for imodium is 1mg per 1kg rabbit.
http://www.bio.miami.edu/hare/squirts.pdf
I was thinking about dissolving a 2mg tablet of imodium for humans into 3 table spoons of water and giving her about 4 drops of that. Or should I just wait.

 

[ladysown]

NO, please no.. that's no needed.

Just wash the loose clumping poos away as much as you can. Then clip all hair back and away from the area.

No meds are necessary. She's just a young bun learning to keep herself clean.

 

[JBun]

You don't want to give immodium. Those instructions are life saving measures for life threatening watery diarrhea. What you are most likely experiencing with the baby and the mom, is Intermittent Soft Cecotropes or Stools, a gut imbalance caused by too many sugars and carbs in the diet, when you are seeing normal fecal pellets but mushy cecotropes. If you don't feed veggies or treats, this is usually caused by the sugars and carbs in the pellets. It is recommended to cut pellets, at least for a couple days until the mushy poops clear up, and feed a non grain grass hay like timothy, unless your rabbits are used to eating alfalfa, then that should be ok, especially since the mom and babies need the extra protein and calcium right now. Once you aren't seeing soft poop for a few days, you can slowly start reintroducing pellets back into the diet. You may not be able to let them eat as many pellets as they were eating before without it starting to cause mushy poop again. I know this can be a little hard to do having a mom and babies that are normally supposed to be free fed pellets. If you are feeding alfalfa hay, then the pellet reduction shouldn't cause a problem. If you aren't feeding alfalfa, you might want to consider slowly introducing some into their diet to make up for the reduced pellet amounts, after the soft poops have cleared up. I would suggest to slowly introduce the alfalfa, as a sudden introduction can sometimes cause digestive upset.

http://www.veterinarypartner.com/Content.plx?P=A&A=3012

Other possible causes of soft poop, are parasites or bacteria, but usually that presents with soft fecals as well.

 

[squidpop]

Thanks, I'll follow that advice. Taking away pellets, only hay, the other 5 babies do not have the mushy poo. Just the one is having a problem. I just checked on her and she hick-uped a couple of times but seems fine- she then went over and started munching down on some hay. She's still nursing from her mom each night so hopefully that also helps.

Also, the pellets are alfalfa based so your right, that's probably it. Maybe she just ate too much of them.

 

[ladysown]

Seriously all it is a young bunny who didn't clean away all her cecatrophes. It's NOT mushy poo. Just wash her up. Leave her diet alone and trim back the hair.

It's VERY common in Holland lop babies and occasionally seen in other breeds. It's just them learning to keep themselves clean. Trim back the hair and it won't be a problem any longer.

 

[Zeroshero]

I did notice that once I trimmed Zero's hair in that region it was much easier to keep clean until he learned to take care of it himself. The pen type eyebrow/ nose hair trimmers work great you can pick them up at the drugstore cheap $10 the clipper blade is really small and they even have a little light. I wasn't about to try scissors!

 

[JBun]

I had the same thing in one of my baby bunnies. She would get this wet mushy poop that would stick around her butt. It wasn't just normal cecotropes that had stuck to her fur. It was mushy unformed cecotropes. As soon as I reduced her pellet amount, they immediately stopped. I only would have problems again with her if I tried to increase her pellet amount. As soon as I decreased it again, it went away. So if you are seeing formed normal cecotropes stuck into the fur, then trimming should solve that. If it is mushy unformed or semi formed cecals, then reducing pellets should help.

 

[Nancy McClelland]

Also, you may want to get alfalfa and free feed them--much better than regular hay as it's higher in protein and calcium.

 

[squidpop]

It wasn't ordinary cecotrophes, the others where having those-looked like shiney grapes- hers was softer. The first day it happened I trimmed away most of the hair, and cleaned then it happened 4 more times the rest of the day-- cleaned her up and the next day it happened again- seemed like lots of mushy poo coming out such a little bunny over 2 days so I was getting worried. She is better now though. I live in New Zealand so I don't have access to the prepackaged hay like timothy- my hay is the best I could find where I live- it is grass hay someone raises and sells for horses- it has lots of different things in it as well that the farmer planted specifically for horses- other grasses, plantain, chicory, however there's something in the hay that has lots of seeds- I think she might have eaten those- or something in the hay she shouldn't have. I'm feeding it to the 6 babies plus 8 other adults and only the mom and the one baby seemed to have the mushy poo for 2 days.
My hay doesn't have alfalfa, the pellets do though, but they are supposed to be the best you can get in New Zealand according to other breeders here.