Matted fur & soft poo

We rescued Billy 2 months ago. When I got him home he has severe matting around his back end. I had to take him to the vet who shaved him. Well most of it anyway, we had to bath him to get rid of the rest.

Anyway, the fur around his bum has now grown back & his fur has started to matt again. I spent ages on Wednesday sorting him out only to find it was really bad again this evening. We bathed him again to clean off what we couldn't pick & comb out.

Unfortunately he has really soft poo. He has no inscisors & has just had to have his molars ground down so he doesn't eat hay well. In fact barely any. He was on fibre pellets for a while from the vet but he's said we should just encourage him to eat more hay rather than keep using them (I'm presuming because it will cost a small fortune!) He only eats pellets - we don't feed him greens as we've noticed our other bunny gets soft poo when he eats too much fresh food.

Oh he also has excess calcium in his urine. AND we're treating him for EC.

Poor bunny!

So my questions - How do you encourage a rabbit to eat hay? How else can we increase fibre in his diet? And how do we prevent the matting without weekly baths? Would you recommend clipping him? And if so with what?

Hi, if you can get him to eat hay then that is the best thing. There are difference types and Hay Experts do a taster selection.

The pellets that I use are Oxbow Bunny Basics T which are hay based (one of mine refuses hay). They have definitely helped with their movements, nice golden poops. Oxbow is one of the lower calcium ones too I believe. The only downside to me is the price (about £14 for 4.5kg) but if you can get your bun to eat hay it would last longer! I used to give them Exel but this gave one of them a dodgy tum.

You could try some fibreplex as it may help too.

Hints to try to get him to eat hay - GOOD LUCK

Take his favorite treat, hide it in the hay and make him forage around to get to it.

If he gets any veggies, mix hay in with them, hay will stick to the moist veggies and he may grow to like the hay.

If he likes carrots, you can shred it and mix it in with the hay, the carrot will also stick to the hay.

You can also mist the hay with a diluted fruit juice (if he likes a certain flavor) which may entice him to eat it.

Also, put hay everywhere that he frequents; make it so he can't get away from it.

Rabbits also like to eat hay in their litter box; most rabbits will only use one side of the litter box for waste.
Place the hay in "clean" side. There is no need for concern about him eating soiled hay, he will just pick around it.