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Persistant Sticky Bum

H

happybunny

Mama Doe
Hi,

Since we adopted Freya a few years ago she has been plauged with a dirty bum. She has a few weeks of cleaness and then we struggle to keep her clean.

She is a small lion head who is not overweight and eats lots of hay.

She has been to the vets numerous times and they have tried various anti bitoics, fibre plex ect.

She is fed on SS with free access to hay.

Any ideas on how to help her?
 
Freya gets afull bowl of food a day for her and her 2 cage mates.

They get veg (mixed leaves/ kale) 2 or 3 times a week but this seems to have no effect on her.
 
Personally I have found with sticky bums its usually the amount of pelletts that I am feeding which is to blame.. Bobby my lop Doe handles everything fine, but if Carlo has too many pelletts he gets dirty
 
We have tried to reduce the pellets but Harvey is a very big rabbit and reducing them too much means Freya and Sulley do not get a look in!
 
happybunny said:
We have tried to reduce the pellets but Harvey is a very big rabbit and reducing them too much means Freya and Sulley do not get a look in!
Click to expand...

I see.. I used to have to feed Bobby first and distract her while we gave Carlo fewer pellets, its tricky to get the balance right isn't it? I was driven mad for ages with Carlos bum, as it was only since he came to live with me it got bad.. It does now seem to have sorted itself out now,
 
Some rabbits can't tolerate pellets at all - I know mine can't. Would it be possible to keep her on a hay and veg only diet?
 
Neither of mine can tolerate pellets either. We do a strictly hay and veg diet only here, but you do need to pay attention to vitamin content and up the veg to a large plateful daily if you are going to do this.

I think if you slowly begin to reduce pellet amount so that over a few weeks you get it down to just one eggcup full per bun per day you should see the excess caecotroph and sticky bottom issue clear up. It is the excessive amounts of carbohydrates in pelleted feed that is usually responsible for caecal dysbiosis and sticky bottoms!
I think you will need to find a way to feed the bun that gets left out first or separately.
This article might help:
http://www.veterinarypartner.com/Content.plx?P=A&A=3012&S=1&SourceID=43
 
Have you actually seen her bend round and eat any caecatrophs straight from her bottom? It can be dietary (and certainly too many pellets could be a culprit) but it can also be because the bun is unable to reach round and get them - for instance if they have some dental problems they sometimes struggle to eat them straight from their bum, or if they have arthritis, spinal pain or joint pain it may hurt them to bend round, or if they are overweight or have a large dewlap and cannot reach. Has she had a really good vet check to try and rule out other non-dietary causes?

Buns should really only have a few pellets daily, it may be worth separating them briefly at meal times so that you know that the less greedy bunnies are getting some pellets but not too many.
 
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