Strange toilet behaviour

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MikeGrahamT21

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Hi everyone,

Hope you and your bunnies are well.

Alex, our rabbit, had the beginnings of gut stasis at the start of november, thankfully we spotted it very early on and got him sorted out.

We have noticed lately that he keeps doing quite a few cecals and also some soft poo's, and while he's doing them his energy levels seem quite low.

He seems to do these in the daytime, then come night time his normal poo's return and lots of them. He eats throughout the day. We have tried him off his veggies for 2 days, but didn't seem to do anything. On a night he's full of beans, and belts round the house doing binky's left right and center, so he does seem fine in himself.

For his veggies he has: Broccoli, Chinese leaf lettuce, romaine lettuce, celery and green pepper. Always has plenty of hay, then he has a glass of his dry food each day which he's had since he was little.

Anyone know what could be happening? Nothing has changed as far as I know recently.
 
You are feeding peppers , broccoli and celery ;Chinese leaf lettuce is like cabbage..not sure?
You are feeding greens that are really gas producing and although many members of the forum feed some of these I personally steer away from anything that could cause gas.

you may want to slowly (very very slowly introduce one new veggie in a small amount at a time ) switch over to some other veggies like romaine, cilantro, parsley, dandelions just to see if if it the veggies.

 
I've read that the types of veggies that are good for them are the really fibrous, leafy green veggies (Kale, collard greens, parsley, etc.)

I had the same problem with my bun but I was also feeding her that gourmet pellet food that has all kinds of high carb foods in it like corn. After a scolding from my vet I cut that out and the consistency of her bowel movements improved a lot. I stopped giving her romaine, celery, and carrots too because she said that wasn't so good for her.

Her diet became 90% timothy hay(or grass from outside)/10% pellets (timothy hay pellets only) along with about a cup of kale or collard greens daily. Luckily she gets to run around outside every day so she gets a lot of grass too.
 
jwark wrote:
I've read that the types of veggies that are good for them are the really fibrous, leafy green veggies (Kale, collard greens, parsley, etc.)

I had the same problem with my bun but I was also feeding her that gourmet pellet food that has all kinds of high carb foods in it like corn. After a scolding from my vet I cut that out and the consistency of her bowel movements improved a lot. I stopped giving her romaine, celery, and carrots too because she said that wasn't so good for her.

Her diet became 90% timothy hay(or grass from outside)/10% pellets (timothy hay pellets only) along with about a cup of kale or collard greens daily. Luckily she gets to run around outside every day so she gets a lot of grass too.
Click to expand...
Yeh... pushing hay over anything else really helps the GI tract and also using just measured ( small amount for adult rabbits) plain pellets rather than the type with all the seeds , nuts and junk
Just be careful feeding kale daily ; it really should only be fed occasionally because it contains calcium oxalates which can build up in a bun's system and be toxic
 
Hi

Thanks for the info. By the sounds of what you are saying we could be feeding our little boy some of the wrong things. The Chinese leaf has gone in the bin now.

What kind of greens would you give to your bunny's? Seems like we've chosen all the bad ones.
 
how big is this glass of pellets u feed him?..do u feed him any treats?.what kind of hay is he eating?

what Angieluv listed are the best veggies ::Romaine,cilantro,parsley,dandelion greens,

healthy treats that they love : fresh mint,basil
 
I would be more concerned about the pellet amount than the veggies to be honest. I feed all of those kinds of veggies. If he's getting the same amount of pellets as an adult that he got as a baby, you probably need to cut down on them.
 
Glass is a little tumbler, we give 80grams of food, he used to have 100grams when he was little. Do we need to lower this amount?

His hay is always meadow hay providing we can get some from the shops.
 
ok so it looks like ur feeding him 3/4's of a cup of pellets a day...ur almost at double what he should be eating.since ur having too many cecos u really need to cut back on the pellets a little...and he still needs his veggie intake too..
 
I agree with Lisa--but don't make any changes too quickly. I'd cut down to about 50g, but go down maybe 10g a week?
 
hi everyone again,

right we cut hit pellets down slightly as suggested, and the cecals/runs seemed to go, however there are more weird going on's now.

Both yesterday and today, we have gone in the dining room to see him and he has looked really scared and been thumping his back legs. We've taken him out of his hutch just to give him a cuddle, and when we put him down so he can go for a run round the room, he thumps again and then runs off really quickly, looking really scared. After about 30mins to 1hr of cuddles and fusses he comes back to normal again. I rung a petline thing that we have with our insurance and she didn't know what it could be either. Have any of you come across this behaviour? Today he did another very soft poo, atfer we managed to calm him down from looking scared.

He's still eating normally, most of the time he poo's normally apart from these odd ones.

Really hoping someone knows what this could be, and that its nothing serious. Literally just this morning, he was skipping round the room doing binky's.
 
Mike, sounds like something is giving him the creeps. Some strange sound, maybe switching on the furnace?
One evening last week we had pretty high wind outside. I started hearing a faint clang. When it occurred, Jez would go on alert, and sometimes thump. After an hour of this I finally decided to go figure out what it was. I have a yellow metal 'bunny crossing' sign hanging outside the door, and it was loose and banging the brick. Ironically, it was the bunny crossing sign that was scaring my bun. :D

So I took it down till hubby can fix it proper.

Just an example that may help you.

Mary Anne
 
i have a bun that thumps when u put him down..he hates that i have to remove him from the hutch and put him in the play area ..he does much better and doesnt thump and seem scared when he can let himself out of the hutch to play.alot of buns are like that they prefer to exit their cage on their terms ..
if u have to remove him then what i do is as soon as i set him down before he can thump and run off i give him a good rub all over real quick ..that seems to stop the thumping.
 
Only thing we've done over last couple of days is we had a candle on to get rid of cooking smells, I wonder if he thinks of the smoke when blown out as danger?
 
try letting him come out of his hutch himself....seriously this really helps alot of bunnies.
i hear thumps all the time ..its tough to find out what their thumping about sometimes.
 
My rabbit thumps most times when I pick him up and cuddle him. He doesn't really like to be picked up. Sometimes he humors me and doesn't thump, but not often. If I pick him up and kiss his belly, I definitely get a thump. ::D
 
Hi there Mike :)

I stopped in tonight to post about my bunny doing this very thing. She is eating and drinking normally, running around and playing as usual, pooping many nice normal round poops... then the odd day (like today) where she'll produce excess cecals and/or more 'runny' poop and I can't figure it out, though it is stressing!

Our Buttons is just over a year old. She is what we think is a cashmere lop/mix. We had been fostering her since early October, until we adopted her last week. When she first arrived, all the changes; from her old home, to the shelter, to us, seemed to stress her and she ended up on antibiotics for 10 days. I thought that fixed her right up, though she still has these 'episodes' of excess cecals and/or soft stools. She'll go a few days or up to a week with normal poop, then suddenly have these softies. :( It is worrisome for me.

I'll be following this thread along with you. Just wanted you to know you're not alone as my bun seems to be doing the same. Does it sound so? How is Alex now?
 
hi

thanks for posting, good to know that its not just alex.

he's still doing the same, we have cut his pellets down as was suggested and this seemed to help, we've had a long period of no cecals but then yesterday he had a couple of hours of doing cecals and even a really soft poo. Cleaned them up so he didn't stand in them, and left him to it, had a look an hour later and he had done a pile of normal poos, so still not sure what causes it. He's a happy little lad tho
 
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