Could Ash be sick?!?

[ThatsMySimi]

Well, Ash is in a big cage thats got hay for bedding (I am out of shavings and he isnt litter trained yet) and has pellets and water for him all day... Well, hes got a poop problem. He poops and they are all sticky and stick together, and look funny... Not like direaia(sp) but just not hard and normal...

Now my mother says someone told her Rabbits are an animal that poops like that then eats it and it gets hard like I am used to... I am wondering if thats true or if ANYONE can shed some light on the mystrey of the soft poos...

Could it be that hes eaten too many pellets?


Thanks for reading!

A very nervous Shay.

 

[AngelnSnuffy]

Do they look like a bunch of grapes? If so, those are cecals, and yes, they normally eat them. You may see that from time to time, they are left and not eaten. This isn't a huge problem, but if it happens alot, it could be a diet issue. See if it continues, if not, Ash is probably just fine. If it doesn't look like grapes, this could be another issue, also related to diet or another problem.

 

[aurora369]

Does the poop look like a small wet black raspberry? If so, what you are seeing is a cecotroph.

Rabbits create two types of excrement, cecal and fecal. Fecal matter is waste and cecal matter is full of nutrients that the bunny eats to stay healthy.

If a bunny is over producing cecal pellets, it is most likely caused by diet. Too much protien is a common culprit.

--Dawn

 

[ThatsMySimi]

They do look like grapes/rasberrys... They aren't bad, but he seems to have done quite a few in the past day... He must eat them though because they dont stick around long... I just freak out... I would hate to see my baby sick.... I have grown so attached to him.

 

[aurora369]

If he's eating them all, then you don't have anything to worry about. Most buns eat them right from the source, but maybe he's just being lazy...

--Dawn

 

[ThatsMySimi]

aurora369 wrote:

* but maybe he's just being lazy...*

--Dawn

Hehe, that sounds so much like him! He is eating them, so I think hes fine.

 

[ThatsMySimi]

Could him having pellets whenever be the matter? Could he be on a bad diet because he's eating too many pellets? He still hasn't eaten them , I am freaking out!

 

[AngelnSnuffy]

ThatsMySimi wrote:

Could him having pellets whenever be the matter? Could he be on a bad diet because he's eating too many pellets? He still hasn't eaten them , I am freaking out!

I only feed mine pellets twice a day, sometimes three if they seem unusally hungry. Does he have unlimited hay? I don't think they'll eat the cecals after they've been sitting around. Like Dawn said, they eat them right from the source.

 

[HoneyPot]

How old is Ash? He's the baby right? Are you feeding him Alfalfa hay and alfalfa pellets?

If he's under 6 months, then he should be getting free fed alfalfa hay and pellets. Over 6 months, you should switch him over to timothy hay and pellets and start limiting his pellets to only 1/4 cup per 5lb bunny.

That being said, the Alfalfa hay and pellets are high in protein, so I've had problems in the past with one of my buns creating too many cecal pellets (and not eating them all) which could be a sign of a diet too high in protein, so I switched him over to timothy pellets and alfalfa hay, and he stopped making too many of them.

Here's a Bunny 101 link about poop - there's a couple links in there about the Cecotrops (aka Cecal poops)... hope this helps.

http://rabbitsonline.net/view_topic.php?id=12076&forum_id=17



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Nadia