Help! Orange/Red Urine. VERY WORRIED

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Soapsmum

Soapsmum

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Adelaide, , Australia
Soap is around 2 months old (going by what the pet shop owner said), and we have had him since just before christmas.
Just went to put him into the laundry (where he sleeps at night) and we found a patch where he has peed, but its an orangey red, almost bloody colour.

Very worried. He seems a little quiet, but he has been eating and drinking normally.


http://peterspureanimalfoods.com/products/rabbit/food/lucerne-pellets.php

These are the pellets that he is fed, along with fruit and veg - most recently a small but of banana, rock-melon and lettuce. We are aware that these pellets are high in protein, etc - looking around for new ones.


Here is a pic of the urine:
attachment



Is it a good idea to maybe take him to the vet first thing in the morning?
 
I know seeing the red/orange urine is a bit upsetting, but it is normal. Freaked out the first time I saw it myself. As long as it's not streaked with blood, rabbits do pee red/orange due to what they eat.

Here's what I read about it when I first freaked out about what I saw.



"Bloody urine is rare in rabbits and rodents. Many cases of 'bloody' urine turn out to be porphyrin-pigmented basic urine or a sanguineous vaginal discharge associated with uterine adenocarcinoma, polyps, or abortion. Thick white urine containing reddish-orange pigment is indicative of an excess of dietary calcium."
Bloody urine in rabbits may be rare, but red urine is not. People who live with house rabbits will find this out. Diseases of Domestic Rabbits (1988) by Lieve Okerman contains two sentences on this subject:
"Red colour of the urine is sometimes observed in rabbits. It is probably caused by a plant pigment and does not affect the health of the animal."
Red urine is a descriptive term for the condition where a rabbit's urine varies in color from the normal pale yellow to dark yellow, carrot orange, brown, or bright red. Red urine is not a medical problem. The color usually returns to normal within one to three days, although I have had a couple of rabbits take three to four weeks before their urine returned to the pale yellow color. White urine may be due to excess calcium in the diet; if it stays white for many days you may want to discuss your rabbit's diet with your veterinarian. Dark urine resulting from heat stress or dehydration may require fluid therapy



http://www.rabbit.org/journal/3-1/red-urine.html



Hope this helps. Believe me, know how you feel. If you really feel uncomfortable and concern, call your vet. I would.

K :)
 
Yeah, we read that website just before posting too. Still thought to post just in case. So you think it should be fine to not take him to the vet?
 
I don't know. You saw it, not me. Was it actually blood or just red/orange tint?

I would call if I was you. It's always best to be safe than sorry. Especially because your bunny is young.

Believe I would rather waste the time getting them to a vet, have the vet laugh and pat me on the head and tell me it's all ok, this is normal, then just guess. But that's me.

Dobby had red/orange tinted urine and it was carrots. Not a lot, just a small amount, but it did change his urine color. It went back to normal before the end of the day. But I did check with a vet.

You do what you need to do to make you feel good about your bunny. I just posted what you read too.

K :)
 
I'd guess its fine-but like Karen (above) said, you are the one who saw it; not us. I've seen blood in a rabbit's urine before and it looks very different then normal-its streaked in in the urine and stands out quite a bit.
 
I freaked when I saw the red pee the first time too. Then I remembered that I had been feeding red chard and the purple leaf lettuce that week. The following week I switched to dandilion leaves and green leaf lettuce and the pee went back to yellow.
 
It didn't looked streaked at all, just looked like the whole urine had changed colour, like you guys have described above.

Just a bit worried cause he hasn't had any carrots recently, but he has had rock-melon? He was eating the newspaper the other day (naughty!), which is coloured, so maybe that might be it also.
 
Blood in the urine should show up as spots of blood whereas if all the urine is one color, that's usually just caused by the carotenoids in their food changing the color and isn't something to worry about.
 
It's pretty scary when their urine turns that color but it happens some times, don't worry. I can't see the pic you posted, but I guess it must be nothing to worry about. Of course if you're in doubt, take him to a vet just in case..

** I love his name! Then it was "scary" for a second when I read his name is Soap and then you put him into laundry... lol - it was good that you explained that's where he sleeps..!! :biggrin2:
 
hotmaildeal wrote:
** I love his name! Then it was "scary" for a second when I read his name is Soap and then you put him into laundry... lol - it was good that you explained that's where he sleeps..!! :biggrin2:
Click to expand...
Yes, I can picture him being hung up on a clothesline to dry, with a clothespin in each ear. lol
 
The food you feed your rabbit only has 15% fibre, when it should have at least 25% fibre.. Also you should NEVER feed your bunny lettuce because it causes bad stomach upset! and you should only feed banana and melon as a treat so only once a week or less, this might be the cause of you bunny's red/orange pee.. Hope this helps!
 
1357rabbitlover wrote:
you should NEVER feed your bunny lettuce because it causes bad stomach upset!
Click to expand...

Perhaps you mean iceberg lettuce. Other lettuces, especially Romaine, are the best greens to give a rabbit. Even iceberg may be ok for a dieting rabbit, I suspect. I have never seen a study cited for iceberg causing diarrhea or anything else.
 
Oh yeah i was talking about iceberg lettuce, my bunny got bad diarrhea after i fed her it.. But rabbits do act differently to food though, so your's may not get diarrhea like mine did! :)
 
Thank you all for your posts and replies to the original post. I was going to post here about this same thing and googled to find some answers. This evening I noticed my buns wet litter had a reddish color to it and a stronger odor than normal. I didn't see any spots of blood, more just an overall change in color. I found the same article that was quoted above by ZRabbits and some other things online about how food can change the color of the urine. I'll keep a closer eye on her litter the next couple days and see what happens.

I was pretty worried at first so it's comforting to know others have seen it too!
 
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