Sorry this is going to be long; I want to give as much context and details as possible.
I adopted my lion-head bunny this year at like the beginning of June. She's est. to be 2-3 yrs old, and she weighs about 4lbs, and where I adopted her from said that she was still having some poop issues because her previous owners had her on an all-veggie diet to counter that they were giving her mainly pellets + some hay. The first couple weeks I had her, her cecotropes were just a total ball of mush and would stick to her long fur or just be uneaten, and I had to baby wipe her butt daily, sometimes multiple times a day since she would produce cecotropes more than once. Since then, I was able to firm up her cecotropes a lot, giving her mostly hay, about 1 cup of veggies packed, and then pellets just in stacking cups or mixed into her hay box to forage for. The vet didn't seem concerned, and I got her a sanitary trim while there to help with the cecotropes, sometimes leaving stains on her fur or sticking to the fur and leaving stains all over her mat since it was so long. Still, otherwise, I haven't had to clean her butt anymore, and I see her eat the cecotropes straight from herself. Occasionally I'll see a couple of individual circles of a cecotrope like it got broken off from the rest, but they have a defined form. She just got spayed maybe three weeks ago now, and right after her spay, her cecotropes were terrible, but now she's been fine and eating them again.
With all this said, I still see minor stains from her cecotropes; she usually ends up pooping/eating them in the same spot, so even with cleaning the area with a vinegar mix, the area on her mat still gets darker over the days since I can't entirely remove the color with the vinegar mix. I attached an image below of what the stain looks like, but when I checked her butt, the areas were clean, and she's not leaving stains across her mat like she was, just in the one small area. I saw a post saying that there shouldn't be any staining at all, so I adjusted her diet again to the following:
- unlimited hay (mix between timothy, orchard, oat, and botanical. There's also a minimal amount of alfalfa mixed in there bc that's the only hay I could get her to eat during her spay recovery)
- no treats or fruit (before, she would occasionally get a strawberry, blueberry, raspberry, banana piece, or carrot. And then I had some freeze-dried TINY fruit pieces that I'd hide in her hay for enrichment, moringa bites, dried papaya, or some dried flowers/leaves/herbs to mix in her hay. and I was giving her oxbow digestive treats daily within the first month or so of having her to firm up her poop, but none of these items were given in excess, I just liked to make sure she had a variety to keep her interest since she wouldn't eat hay before because she grew up having only veggies)
- no pellets (she was already barely getting pellets, so this isn't a drastic change for her at all)
- about 1 cup of veggies, which has a mix of the following: the biggest amount is fennel + bok choy, then the next amount is some spring mix, and then the smallest amount is cilantro (1-2 springs depending on sprig size) + oregano (tiny amount every other day or so), and then very occasionally a leaf or two from a brussel sprout. Her veggies do change, and she's been given radicchio, escarole, endive, red/green lettuce mix, arugula, kale, basil, mint, thyme, dill, lemon balm, microgreens, watercress, mustard/collard greens, dandelion leaves, wheatgrass, and some others I can't remember all in the respective amounts for each green. She also gets celery sometimes and very rarely cucumber or carrot.
Is this the current adjustment, and is the current veggie mix fine? Do you see anywhere for adjustments, or am I on the right track, and she's possibly still just adjusting from 2-3yrs of being fed only veggies, the stress of being surrendered, then the stress of adoption and settling in, and the stress of her spay surgery, and I need to give it time with the current restricted diet I started up on Friday until there's no more staining and then start to introduce the herbs, florals, treats, pellets, and fruits slowly?
I adopted my lion-head bunny this year at like the beginning of June. She's est. to be 2-3 yrs old, and she weighs about 4lbs, and where I adopted her from said that she was still having some poop issues because her previous owners had her on an all-veggie diet to counter that they were giving her mainly pellets + some hay. The first couple weeks I had her, her cecotropes were just a total ball of mush and would stick to her long fur or just be uneaten, and I had to baby wipe her butt daily, sometimes multiple times a day since she would produce cecotropes more than once. Since then, I was able to firm up her cecotropes a lot, giving her mostly hay, about 1 cup of veggies packed, and then pellets just in stacking cups or mixed into her hay box to forage for. The vet didn't seem concerned, and I got her a sanitary trim while there to help with the cecotropes, sometimes leaving stains on her fur or sticking to the fur and leaving stains all over her mat since it was so long. Still, otherwise, I haven't had to clean her butt anymore, and I see her eat the cecotropes straight from herself. Occasionally I'll see a couple of individual circles of a cecotrope like it got broken off from the rest, but they have a defined form. She just got spayed maybe three weeks ago now, and right after her spay, her cecotropes were terrible, but now she's been fine and eating them again.
With all this said, I still see minor stains from her cecotropes; she usually ends up pooping/eating them in the same spot, so even with cleaning the area with a vinegar mix, the area on her mat still gets darker over the days since I can't entirely remove the color with the vinegar mix. I attached an image below of what the stain looks like, but when I checked her butt, the areas were clean, and she's not leaving stains across her mat like she was, just in the one small area. I saw a post saying that there shouldn't be any staining at all, so I adjusted her diet again to the following:
- unlimited hay (mix between timothy, orchard, oat, and botanical. There's also a minimal amount of alfalfa mixed in there bc that's the only hay I could get her to eat during her spay recovery)
- no treats or fruit (before, she would occasionally get a strawberry, blueberry, raspberry, banana piece, or carrot. And then I had some freeze-dried TINY fruit pieces that I'd hide in her hay for enrichment, moringa bites, dried papaya, or some dried flowers/leaves/herbs to mix in her hay. and I was giving her oxbow digestive treats daily within the first month or so of having her to firm up her poop, but none of these items were given in excess, I just liked to make sure she had a variety to keep her interest since she wouldn't eat hay before because she grew up having only veggies)
- no pellets (she was already barely getting pellets, so this isn't a drastic change for her at all)
- about 1 cup of veggies, which has a mix of the following: the biggest amount is fennel + bok choy, then the next amount is some spring mix, and then the smallest amount is cilantro (1-2 springs depending on sprig size) + oregano (tiny amount every other day or so), and then very occasionally a leaf or two from a brussel sprout. Her veggies do change, and she's been given radicchio, escarole, endive, red/green lettuce mix, arugula, kale, basil, mint, thyme, dill, lemon balm, microgreens, watercress, mustard/collard greens, dandelion leaves, wheatgrass, and some others I can't remember all in the respective amounts for each green. She also gets celery sometimes and very rarely cucumber or carrot.
Is this the current adjustment, and is the current veggie mix fine? Do you see anywhere for adjustments, or am I on the right track, and she's possibly still just adjusting from 2-3yrs of being fed only veggies, the stress of being surrendered, then the stress of adoption and settling in, and the stress of her spay surgery, and I need to give it time with the current restricted diet I started up on Friday until there's no more staining and then start to introduce the herbs, florals, treats, pellets, and fruits slowly?
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You're already adjusting her diet so that great. I also gave mine a probiotic called Fibreplex for a week and it got better relatively quickly. I would recommend it or another high fibre supplement if you can find some.
