Scented rabbits?! Help please x

Right bit of background info for you ....BTW I posted this in housing & got no responses....figured maybe it was the wrong place to have put it anyway :roll: hope its ok to duplicate post x

Got Pip at 10/12 weeks, litter trained to a T now, shes perfect hutch always lovely & clean, with no smells....well except her wee was quite strong smelling when it seeped onto the wood (prior to my fab new hooded litter tray)....

Anyway, got new adoptee Rusty....noticed he has a much more different sort of smell to Pip, I wouldnt say its a bad smell as such (not overly nice tho!) but he certainly has quite an overpowering smell.... He was castrated a good 4 weeks ago, as I did think it was hormonal urine....I will go out again in a bit & try to figure if he smells of anything in particular....

Anyway my question is, is it normal that he has quite a strong smell? Could it be linked to his diet? Or could he still be spraying? Or a bit smelly from living in not so clean housing previously ? and it will gradually wear off with him cleaning himself and now living in very clean conditions?

I dont mind accepting if he just is a smelly bunny and I do expect a degree of smell as they are animals....however I am just worried it could be linked to health probs or diet issues? His poos seem fine....

We are off for his VHD tomorrow so will speak to the vet about giving him a check over...Am thinking possibly blocked anal or scent glands?..

Anyone?! x

It could be his scent glands for sure if they have hard wax in them - have you checked them yourself? You don't need to be a vet to do this.

Some bunnies do differ but you have to remember that any bunny coming into a new area is going to scent to make it his space. If you have two rabbits sharing an area but not bonded this will make this even more likely. Are they bonded?

It could also be diet/health related or just simply that the hormones haven't subsided sufficiently yet. Is it musky or just a bad urine smell? I think it's easy to tell the difference between scenting smell and bad urine.

Thank you. I will have to do some googling on how to check scent glands and give it a go when I get in from work – failing that we are at the vets tomorrow so maybe I should hold off, get the vet to check and then show me how to check.

Pip and Rusty are not fully bonded. They had a few bonding intervals, all went great but they have been separated since she was spayed on Monday.

So while she is indoors recovering from a spay, I cleaned the hutch and let him live in there – nothing to do with the bonding process as such (although maybe it will help?!) but it’s a double storey so thought that would be nice for him to go in for a little while instead of his single storey one. After initially placing him in there having just disinfected it.

I read your post about the previous bun scent still being prevalent and so I used vinegar to wash it and hopefully remove all scent to help aid litter training. Which has been quite successful so far, he now only poos in the ‘bedroom’ area, and I always pick any stray ones up (which there are still a few of) and place them into the tray.

I think its more a musky earthy sort of smell than urine – but being new to rabbits I couldn’t be totally sure….Although I know one thing for definite, it doesn’t smell anything like Pips urine smell…