Caeceotroph

My Mona has been leaving her caeceotrophs in the run without eating them.
Just to clarify, the dark brown poo that looks like bunches of grapes are caecetrophs and the bunnies normally eat them short after excretion.

Anyway, every morning when I go to the run, there are always at least 3 separate piles, sometimes squashed into the ground, sometimes intact. I have tried various cures: Avipro Plus, taken her off pellets and given her hay tea.
She currently has lice (gettng panomec every 10 days), lives with a highly anxious partner and has just finished a course of pennicillin (for syphilis) which she'd been recieving from December.

She eats and plays and poos as normal.Yet this has been ongoing for over a month now. What I don't know is if she is producing too much caeceotroph to eat or she has cut them out of her diet altogether. Also she is 6 years old, spayed and very feisty. I don't know if its maybe inherant with age.

Does anybody with a better knowledge of bunnie poo have any suggestions?


Thanks

:wave: Is Mona fed Excel by any chance?

Should buns eat their caecotrophs? Lola does a few little ones in the garden - about 5-6 stuck together.

Are they a unhealthy sign? Lola is fed Excel Lite.

fionabisset said:

:wave: Is Mona fed Excel by any chance?

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Excel lite, yes she's been on it for years, so are all the buns.

Is there something in it that causes problems?

Fifibutton said:

Excel lite, yes she's been on it for years, so are all the buns.

Is there something in it that causes problems?

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My 2 are fed excel, and I've noticed over the past 2/3 weeks that Sooty's poo's are more "sloppy" and I've been seeing a lot of caeceotrophs when I'd never seen them before. She's been fine on it before and nothing in their diet has changed.
I was wondering if they had changed anything in it :?

Dos the timing connect to the penicillin at all? If her food hasn't changed, I would suggest the penicilin may have been the trigger. It is a known problem for rabbits ( it can kill them) and despite the fact it may have been injected to try an minimise any getting into the GI tract, by simple absorpsion, some will have travelled through. I would keep using a good prob-biotic to hand and keep an eye on it. If it doesn't seem to settle and the penicillin has been finished for a while, it may be worth giving the vet a call for some advice.

my bunnys used to have excess cecals when i used oxbow pellets but since they were changed over to A/P no more to be seen :wave:

It would suspect that it is the course of penicillin that has upset her gut flora. Im not sure how good the probiotics you used are, but i know that the bio-lapis is very good. I would suggest using them until the poo is more normal.

The poo you describe (the grape like ones) are not really caecotrophs and they are not really normal rabbit poo. Rabbit poo should be hard pellets which are often pear shaped. The caecotrophs are usually eaten straight from the anus without even touching the floor and are shiny dark brown and often smelly! For rabbits to produce the right kind of poo, they need the correct diet. I have done a lot of research on this since my bunny was ill 18 months ago and at the RWA conference last year i spoke to a very good vet who told me to feed the following to an average size 2kg rabbit;

Loads of hay/grass!
2 small handfuls of veg daily (a variety should be fed)
2 tablespoons of pellets daily

Too many pellets can cause rabbits to not eat their caecotrophs because there is a high content of protein in pellets and if they eat too many pellets, they no longer need the protein they get from the caecotrophs. Its important not to feed too much dried food. If necessary, gradually change the diet to the above. The first thing would be to reduce the pelleted feed and increase hay. Any new veg and the amount of veg fed should be introduced/changed very slowly, but wait until you have corrected the pelleted feed amount before changing anything else in the diet. Ensure your rabbit receives one sachet of bio-lapis daily but put it on the food, not in water.

my bunnys excess cecals used to come out like small bunches a grapes and were very shiny and stunk to high heaven, mine was doin this as there was too much protein in the oxbow pellets, so i changed to A/P as it has a very high fibre and after a few days the problem was solved,

Thanks guys

kat_g thanks for the heads up about bio lapis. Is that perscription only and what pellets would you suggest and where can I get them?

poppet was eating his poop infront of me earlier -.-'

Were you disgusted? :lol: Or did he have the decency to wear a napkin at least?

Pelfe said:

poppet was eating his poop infront of me earlier -.-'

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Make sure he brushes his teeth before kissing ya! :shock:

lol i was like 'DAD LOOK!'
he was not impressed :roll::lol:
and eww bunny poo kisses!