Pooey rabbit

bethanhindson · Jul 5, 2008

Hi everyone. I'm a new rabbit owner and my bunny is adorable and shorthaired. However, he is 13 weeks old and I've got two problems:

1.) He seems to be having a problem grooming. A couple of times he's got a tiny bit of water or dirt on him and hasn't managed to clean it off until 3 or so days later when I've got a toothbrush and brushed it out.

2.) The grooming issue has led to a poo issue. At the moment he's built up a mass of poo about the size of a small bouncey ball just in the last few hours. I washed him a couple of days ago because he had a lot of poo then but it didn't go brilliantly - he was jumping around a lot and HATES being tranced (i.e., it just doesn't seem to work on him). When he'd had the bath he seemed traumatised so I brushed him with a toothbrush until he was dry. I'm worried about flystrike if he keeps soiling himself - he's a house rabbit but he needs to go out sometimes to generate some vitamin D.

My questions are:
1.) Is it strange that he cannot groom himself yet or is he just young?
2.) What do I do about the poo? It seems to be a recurring issue with him.
3.) Will he be easier to trance when he's older so I can clean him using a dry clean or damp cotton wool, rather than giving him a full bath?

Any help will be appreciated. Thank you very much.

janice · Jul 5, 2008

bethanhindson said:
Hi everyone. I'm a new rabbit owner and my bunny is adorable and shorthaired. However, he is 13 weeks old and I've got two problems:

1.) He seems to be having a problem grooming. A couple of times he's got a tiny bit of water or dirt on him and hasn't managed to clean it off until 3 or so days later when I've got a toothbrush and brushed it out.

2.) The grooming issue has led to a poo issue. At the moment he's built up a mass of poo about the size of a small bouncey ball just in the last few hours. I washed him a couple of days ago because he had a lot of poo then but it didn't go brilliantly - he was jumping around a lot and HATES being tranced (i.e., it just doesn't seem to work on him). When he'd had the bath he seemed traumatised so I brushed him with a toothbrush until he was dry. I'm worried about flystrike if he keeps soiling himself - he's a house rabbit but he needs to go out sometimes to generate some vitamin D.

My questions are:
1.) Is it strange that he cannot groom himself yet or is he just young?
2.) What do I do about the poo? It seems to be a recurring issue with him.
3.) Will he be easier to trance when he's older so I can clean him using a dry clean or damp cotton wool, rather than giving him a full bath?

Any help will be appreciated. Thank you very much.

Welcome to RU.

In answer to your questions, I would avoid bathing your rabbit and using wet wipes instead.

In normal situations rabbits can clean themselves. Usually the main reasons for rabbits to be unable to clean themselves is due to either them having too high protein with a too low in fibre diet, being fed too much pellets, being too fat and unable to clean themselves or being old and not able to clean themselves. As your rabbit is young I suspect that if you reduced the amount of dried food this would improve. Could you advise us on how much pellets you give your rabbit a day and what type of dry food you feed.

bethanhindson · Jul 5, 2008

jrn1310 said:
Welcome to RU.

In answer to your questions, I would avoid bathing your rabbit and using wet wipes instead.

In normal situations rabbits can clean themselves. Usually the main reasons for rabbits to be unable to clean themselves is due to either them having too high protein with a too low in fibre diet, being fed too much pellets, being too fat and unable to clean themselves or being old and not able to clean themselves. As your rabbit is young I suspect that if you reduced the amount of dried food this would improve. Could you advise us on how much pellets you give your rabbit a day and what type of dry food you feed.

Thank you for responding. In answer to your question, I feed one handful of dry muesli a day and try to keep the hay topped up all the time. I've been giving him a cabbage leaf a day too but the cabbage has just been finished off. I've avoided lettuce because I heard that could make the poos too soft.

What type of foods would you advise? Do you think, hearing what he's fed, that it might indeed be the case that he is on the wrong diet?

janice · Jul 5, 2008

If you look at your bag of museli you should have something on the bag which says the fibre content of it. Most of them are between 8 - 14 % fibre, the higher the fibre content the better. On http://www.rabbitrehome.org.uk/care/rabbitfood.asp there is a list of the fibre content of the other main foods, Science Selective is a good food which is easily available, Bunny Basics T which is made by Oxbow is even higher in fibre but can be difficult to get hold of. Avoid excel as in some rabbits this can cause sticky bottoms. When you are changing over your bun to a new food do so slowly by about a 10% amount each day.

I would cut down the amount of dried food to an egg cup maximum a day and feed at hay in the quantity of at least the same size of your rabbits body size. Be careful introducing new fresh foods very slowly only feeding them a tiny portion until they are used to it, rapidly introducing fresh food can cause an upset stomach or a build up of gas in the intestines.

bethanhindson · Jul 5, 2008

jrn1310 said:
If you look at your bag of museli you should have something on the bag which says the fibre content of it. Most of them are between 8 - 14 % fibre, the higher the fibre content the better. On http://www.rabbitrehome.org.uk/care/rabbitfood.asp there is a list of the fibre content of the other main foods, Science Selective is a good food which is easily available, Bunny Basics T which is made by Oxbow is even higher in fibre but can be difficult to get hold of. Avoid excel as in some rabbits this can cause sticky bottoms. When you are changing over your bun to a new food do so slowly by about a 10% amount each day.

I would cut down the amount of dried food to an egg cup maximum a day and feed at hay in the quantity of at least the same size of your rabbits body size. Be careful introducing new fresh foods very slowly only feeding them a tiny portion until they are used to it, rapidly introducing fresh food can cause an upset stomach or a build up of gas in the intestines.

That's absolutely brilliant, thank you for all your help. I'll go and buy some more muesli because the one I bought was pet shop, unmarked muesli (I wasn't sure at the time but I thought small franchise was preferable to big, Pets at Home type franchise).

janice · Jul 5, 2008

bethanhindson said:
That's absolutely brilliant, thank you for all your help. I'll go and buy some more muesli because the one I bought was pet shop, unmarked muesli (I wasn't sure at the time but I thought small franchise was preferable to big, Pets at Home type franchise).

If you only have a small amount of museli left, I would try and buy a pelleted food which is high in fibre and swap over to that. The majority of the museli types are lower in fibre. Many rabbits are quite selective in what they eat and usually end up eating the bits which tend to be the low fibre bits which makes their diet even lower in fibre!

bunny babe · Jul 5, 2008

:wave: Welcome.

I use Bunny basics T, I think there is also one for younger rabbits, here is their link:

http://www.oxbowhay.com/link.sp?page=international_united_kingdom

I actually order mine through the vet and then you don't have to pay postage.

Also you may be feeding too many greens, they need introducing slowly to babies.

You may want to invest in some rearguard for your bunny, it will not prevent flystrike but will stop any fly eggs hatching. You can only get it from vet at about £15 and it is applied every 8-10 weeks.

Fairy13 · Jul 5, 2008

I agree with all the great advice you've had so far.

I too would try getting a pelleted feed if you've not much muesli left.
I think the most commonly used pellets here are Science Selective, Excel, Allen and Page, and the Oxbow Bunny Basics as bunny babe has mentioned.

Once you have his diet sorted his pooey bum should clear up. One of our buns is having trouble right now which is being investigated an monitored by our vet as his diet is ok. :? But to help in the meantime, even though our bun is shorthaired he's very fuzzy and fluffy so our vet has trimmed the fur around his bum and tail with clippers (not something i would personally try myself!) and applied rearguard, which should protect against flystrike for 12 weeks while you get his pooey bum sorted.

Then he shouldn't need baths etc. I also dont trance our buns as they'd never comply! But maybe someone will come along with more advice regarding that.

Good luck x

Pooey rabbit

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