swarning1222
Well-Known Member
I posted before about my 4, now 5 month old female bun having odd poops. Her poops seem to just keep changing and I can't figure out how to keep helping her improve. She has all the symptoms of megacolon :/ I don't think it could be any kind of infection since this has been going on for months. Also she lives with her mother who has perfectly healthy poop (although she was on antibiotics for a uti). I'm going to take her to the vet as soon as I can but since she's been going on like this for a while and is otherwise perfectly healthy (super active, eats good, never any bloat or anything like that) it doesn't seem to be an emergency. After all the money I just spent on her momma, I can't put off getting my boy neutered any longer, so he's going first!
First she had mostly normal poos and a few a day that were very large and oval. Then they started getting more frequent. Sometimes big footballs, sometimes the double poos. Sometimes huge odd shaped monster poops. Then all of the sudden all her poops were odd shaped. Some huge, some very small but basically none were normal. Most of them had points on them or flat sides.
I was feeding her alfalfa pellets that were a lower quality. And unlimited Timothy hay that I did some research on and found out wasn't very great. I was giving her maybe 6 cut up pieces of romain lettuce a day I was introducing to her.
So I switched (slowly) to oxbow Timothy pellets, and a higher quality hay and saw a great improvement in her poos. They got lighter in color, less stinky and less sticky.
Now what I can't figure out is 1) the lettuce.
I stopped giving it to her for a couple days and her poops seemed to get darker and mushier (which doesn't actually make much sense) and more oddly shaped, so I went back to the six or so pieces a day and her poos seemed better then. I tried to give her more since it seemed to be helping but it seems like just that little amount is helping, and more than that is not.
And 2) sometimes throughout the day her poops look great and sometimes I still find the terrible piles with all shapes and sizes. She munches on her food and hay all day. So I'm wondering if maybe it's just when she eats more hay she's having these good poops. And I just can't control when/how much hay she eats?
The latest change is that everytime I let her out in the morning/early afternoon she's been having these very soft, smelly dark poops. They're the size of normal poop, somewhat odd shaped, single, yet the consistency of cecals?! Now I don't know if this is just a coincidence or not, but this is around the same time I feed them their lettuce, and after she eats hers, her poops go back to normal? This morning this happened (more than usual actually) and about 20 min after I gave her lettuce she left this perfect pile of poops (yay! Lol) BUT there were about 3 or 4 very tiny poops mixed in with them?
I'm wondering if maybe lettuce is part of the key here to fix this. Maybe I should give her a couple pieces throughout the day to keep things moving? Or are there other veggies I could add in that could help? It's hard since it seems like she can only have a tiny bit. And I'm nervous to see what a lot would do so I haven't tried to give her a bunch. Any advice is appreciated!! And she will be going to the vet very soon. And if she is a megacolon bun, am I looking for those perfect poops still? Or is there a different "normal" for megacolon? And what are these dark soft poos I'm getting all of the sudden?!
First she had mostly normal poos and a few a day that were very large and oval. Then they started getting more frequent. Sometimes big footballs, sometimes the double poos. Sometimes huge odd shaped monster poops. Then all of the sudden all her poops were odd shaped. Some huge, some very small but basically none were normal. Most of them had points on them or flat sides.
I was feeding her alfalfa pellets that were a lower quality. And unlimited Timothy hay that I did some research on and found out wasn't very great. I was giving her maybe 6 cut up pieces of romain lettuce a day I was introducing to her.
So I switched (slowly) to oxbow Timothy pellets, and a higher quality hay and saw a great improvement in her poos. They got lighter in color, less stinky and less sticky.
Now what I can't figure out is 1) the lettuce.
I stopped giving it to her for a couple days and her poops seemed to get darker and mushier (which doesn't actually make much sense) and more oddly shaped, so I went back to the six or so pieces a day and her poos seemed better then. I tried to give her more since it seemed to be helping but it seems like just that little amount is helping, and more than that is not.
And 2) sometimes throughout the day her poops look great and sometimes I still find the terrible piles with all shapes and sizes. She munches on her food and hay all day. So I'm wondering if maybe it's just when she eats more hay she's having these good poops. And I just can't control when/how much hay she eats?
The latest change is that everytime I let her out in the morning/early afternoon she's been having these very soft, smelly dark poops. They're the size of normal poop, somewhat odd shaped, single, yet the consistency of cecals?! Now I don't know if this is just a coincidence or not, but this is around the same time I feed them their lettuce, and after she eats hers, her poops go back to normal? This morning this happened (more than usual actually) and about 20 min after I gave her lettuce she left this perfect pile of poops (yay! Lol) BUT there were about 3 or 4 very tiny poops mixed in with them?
I'm wondering if maybe lettuce is part of the key here to fix this. Maybe I should give her a couple pieces throughout the day to keep things moving? Or are there other veggies I could add in that could help? It's hard since it seems like she can only have a tiny bit. And I'm nervous to see what a lot would do so I haven't tried to give her a bunch. Any advice is appreciated!! And she will be going to the vet very soon. And if she is a megacolon bun, am I looking for those perfect poops still? Or is there a different "normal" for megacolon? And what are these dark soft poos I'm getting all of the sudden?!