Smelly/bleached bottom/tail

[Saudade]

Playing with Lucy today I noticed that she smelt quite strange, not her usual sawdust and hay smell that she gets but more of a musky urine smell without the ammonia.
Picking her up I tranced her and checked her bottom. The area behind her bits has changed colour over night from a black to a light beige.

I took her out and gave her a bunny butt bath, but no matter how much I washed her butt more brown stuff kept coming off.
She still smells but it's so cold tonight I don't feel comfortable letting her butt stay wet any longer.

What could be wrong with her? It saw her bedding today while i cleaned it, nothing out of the usual, no changes in diet nothing.

In my head I keep worrying that maybe it's bladder sludge or a bladder problem.

I checked scent glands and the like but she still smells terribly.

I'll get a picture soon and put it up.

 

[TinysMom]

bladder sludge was the first thing that came to mind for me too....it smells really strange.

 

[Saudade]

Oh gosh...

I'm still trying to find my SD card for my camera.

What are there any more signs? She's not being lethargic or quieter, in fact if anything she's being more energetic.

 

[Saudade]

I've checked the corners of her cage but there's no sludge... She still smells the same. I haven't had time to trim the hair around her butt lately because I lost my scissors for it.

 

[Saudade]

*bump*

Okay so I clipped back the fur that smelt the worse that a bunny butt bath (without any form of shampoo) didn't manage to get rid of, I noticed that she has a little bit of a bald patch where her regular white skin can be seen but surrounded by light browny sorta substance.

 

[tonyshuman]

I can't really tell if that's sludge or poo. Sludge is a pretty serious issue that should be looked at soon by a vet, and pooping on herself can also be pretty serious, unless she's overweight (which I don't think she is, right?). You can use baby shampoo for a bunny butt bath if needed. Cecals caked to the bum can smell pretty bad and weird, but I've never smelled sludge, so that may be what's going on.

 

[Saudade]

It doesn't look to be sludge and it wasn't cecals.

It honestly looks like she's somehow bleached the colour of her butt.

I can't take her to a vet at the moment, I don't have any money, nor does my family and their view on things are as usual that she can just be replaced..

She's stopped smelling and the colour hasn't spread any further, I'm just keeping an eye on her at the moment. She's not exhibiting any other signs of bladder sludge.

 

[tonyshuman]

That sounds like it might be urine scald, perhaps. That can be a sign of urinary tract infection, or sitting in the urine. Rabbits' urine is very basic (ie the opposite of acidic) and can cause damage to the skin and fur if it's in contact with them for a long time. For this reason, I like to see grates in litterboxes, either plastic canvas (which is what I use--it's a plastic grid used in some crafts) or a metal grate of some sort. That way the bunny never has to sit in urine-soaked bedding material. It doesn't harm their feet because they only stand on the grid while they're using the bathroom, unlike being in a wire-bottomed cage full-time.

 

[Pipp]

How old is Lucy again?


sas :?

 

[Saudade]

She's just over a year old.

Her water intake's increased a fair bit over the last couple of days, drinking 250ml in a sitting, she is getting unlimited hay with wetted down Romaine Lettuce at night, a massively cut down amount of pellets, about 1/8 of a cup of pellets.

She hasn't been litterbox trained yet, she refused completely to take to it, instead moving her straw and hay to the corners of the cage and then urinating all over it, pooping on it and then grinding it in to a disgusting mess. After I tried that once I gave up and she has shavings all over the bottom of her cage.

When I cleaned her cage today the corners were beige, which isn't unusual, however it was much more pronounced and didn't disappear straight away, but dissolved after a couple of minutes. She doesn't seem to be having any difficulty urinating or any pain from it. Her fecals are regularly formed and shaped.

She's unspayed at the moment and will be spayed towards the end of the year. I'm taking her to a vet appointment towards the end of next month.

 

[tonyshuman]

It sounds like her diet is quite good, but that is quite a bit of water intake. It sounds like she may have sludge--the beige stuff you're talking about, is it thick at all, or just a thin coating on the plastic? Is it at all sandy in texture?

 

[Saudade]

It was a thing coating, it may of been sandy but it was hard to tell, the water inside remained clear when it dissolved.

I brought her out and she peed on a towel this morning, it wasn't sandy or lumpy, but was quite yellow. she didn't seem in pain, it happened when I was stroking her ears.