Time to change food ?

My rabbit, Rupert, is currently eating Excel but he has recently been getting a very dirty bum where his poo is a bit too soft. He never used to have this problem. I have cut out treats from his diet. This worked for a while but now we are back to the problem. As it is getting hotter now and the flies are about I cannot risk him being too dirty. At the moment I am cleaning his bottom every day !
Would a change of fodo help ?

exel is well known to cause a sticky bottom, it would be worth changing his food just ensure that you do it slowly by adding a small amount of his new food into his old and gradually decreasing the amount of excell daily for about 10 days until he's on only his new food.

I agree with Phill. Hope you get it sorted. The only thing is to get his teeth checked as that can sometimes be the problem.

I agree with both of the above too. What were you going to change to?

How much excel does he have each day? Cutting down the pellets might help, although you may need to increase the veg a bit again to compensate; if the problem has persisted since you've cut down on the veg it sounds as if the pellets may be part of the culprit.

Anecdotally a lot of people find the 'sticky bum' problems reduce by swapping from excel to science selective; having said that, SS is sometimes a bit trickier to get hold of and excel have just changed their recipe, so you might find swapping to the new bag of excel (which is now 19% fibre instead of the previous 16%) might help.

Has Rupert had a vet check recently? There are also some medical conditions that can exacerbate sticky bums - for instance dental problems or anything causing stiffness or problems bending over such as arthritis or e.cuniculi infection.

Thanks for all your advice.
He had his teeth checkedlast time we went for his jabs not so long ago and all was well.
I was also going to ask what food would be best as I definately do not want to put him on any of that commercial cheap colourful food as I believe that is no good.

The best sort of foods are Science Selective, Allen & Page, Bunny Basics T and Wagg Optimum. I'm sure there are some more but this will give you a chance to find out what you can get. Most are available online but then you have to pay postage.

www.vetuk.co.uk is a little cheaper for some of the foods.

Another idea is email the manufacturers and ask for samples which I've done before so you can try before you buy if you get me.

In that case Science Selective every time. Good luck with sorting it out :wave: