New user, looking for advice about cleaning

New here so hello to everyone! :wave:

Looking for tips on cleaning a rabbits bum.
Pickles is a 3 year old who was adopted by us when she was around a year old. Her previous owner couldn't look after her so handed her in to Pets At Home, which is where we got her. She has never been socialised with other bunnies and she hates to be handled.
She has always managed to keep herself reasonably clean but occasionally needs a helping hand. We keep an eye on her and only give her a clean when she needs it.
The first time we gave her a clean was during the winter, we used a tiny spot of rabbit shampoo with water in the bath and were able to clean off all traces of poo without any major tantrums. She was then given a towel dry and placed in her indoor cage in front of the radiator.
The second time was about 6 months later, she had been in her outdoor hutch and we noticed she was getting a bit dirty again. So we did the same again: however this time she reacted a lot more frightened than before and we weren't able to get her properly cleaned. For fear of upsetting her further we gave up, dried her then placed her in her cage. We then took her to the vets who helped us get rid of the rest of the poo with scissors and advised that whatever we were doing was working well but to try and avoid using the bath unless absolutely necessary.
She had kept herself very clean since then but recently both of us started new jobs which meant longer time away from home and less time to check in with bunny. We tried to clean her tonight as we spotted quite a bit of build-up on her bum and belly area. After trying to gently work the stuff off with my fingers, we realised we needed to use water again. Instead of using the bath we filled the base of her cage with about a centimetre of warm water and placed her in it. She freaked out. We consoled and placated her and when she had calmed, I tried to work the dried in poo off with my fingers and she freaked out again. We got her dried off a bit and placed her cleaned caged in front of the radiaor but she is still dirty underneath.
What would you recommend for such a situation?

Her diet consists of grass, hay and nuggets, with helpings of mostly green veg as treats. She doesn't drink much water from either bowls or bottles but we always make sure she has fresh water just in case she wants it. She is indoors during the winter and outside in the warmer months, with a thermal hutch cover for at night. When outdoors she has access to a grassy area during the day and is in good general health apart from the poopy bum.

Welcome to the forum. :wave:

How many nuggets does she get? A healthy bun should never need cleaning so I would strongly suggest having a vet give her a thorough health check (teeth being the main priority). Did your vet suggest anything about why she is getting a dirty bum? Is she overweight at all? Is she spayed?

Also how big is her indoor cage and how frequently do you clean it out?

Sorry for all the questions!

Vegan_Bunny said:

Welcome to the forum. :wave:

How many nuggets does she get? A healthy bun should never need cleaning so I would strongly suggest having a vet give her a thorough health check (teeth being the main priority). Did your vet suggest anything about why she is getting a dirty bum? Is she overweight at all? Is she spayed?

Also how big is her indoor cage and how frequently do you clean it out?

Sorry for all the questions!

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Thanks for the quick response.
She gets a tablespoon of nuggets in the morning and a tablespoon at night. She was slightly overweight but we cut back the amount of veg and nuggets she was getting. She is spayed. The vet gave her an examination about 4 or 5 months ago and said she looked in good health. She has suffered from dehydration before and was hospitalised due to the fact that she doesn't drink much water. I sometimes syringe water into her mouth to make sure she is at least getting some - which normally results in her giving me the cold shoulder for the rest of the day. Her indoor cage is approximately 4.5 ft x 2.5 ft x 1.5 ft, and both her cage and hutch get cleaned out daily. We just brought her indoors today for the winter. Her teeth look fine but I'll phone the vet tomorrow to be on the safe side.

Ian&Deborah said:

Thanks for the quick response.
She gets a tablespoon of nuggets in the morning and a tablespoon at night. She was slightly overweight but we cut back the amount of veg and nuggets she was getting. She is spayed. The vet gave her an examination about 4 or 5 months ago and said she looked in good health. She has suffered from dehydration before and was hospitalised due to the fact that she doesn't drink much water. I sometimes syringe water into her mouth to make sure she is at least getting some - which normally results in her giving me the cold shoulder for the rest of the day. Her indoor cage is approximately 4.5 ft x 2.5 ft x 1.5 ft, and both her cage and hutch get cleaned out daily. We just brought her indoors today for the winter. Her teeth look fine but I'll phone the vet tomorrow to be on the safe side.

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Her diet sounds good..but I would cut out the veg and see if that helps with her mucky bum. Some buns can tolerate veg but a lot can't because it is actually quite unnatural for them. What veg does she get? Carrots and parsnips etc are very high in sugar and can cause mucky bums. If you are worried about her drinking, you can add a tiny bit of pure apple juice to her bowl and see if she will drink more. My buns go crazy for that Pro C vitamin powder that you can add to their water...they drank about a litre between the two of them in half an hour and peed everywhere! :shock: Safe to say they don't get it now. :lol: Maybe putting some of that in her water will help. My buns also really like cold, fresh water. I have heard other buns like luke warm water. Have an experiment and see how she goes with that.

As for her indoor cage...really that is far too small for a rabbit to live in. Is there any chance you can attach a pen to it? The minimum requirements for a rabbit is a 6x2x2ft hutch/cage with a permanent attached pen/run of 8x4ft. In such a small cage (even if she gets some free rage time) she will most likely become obese or develop arthritis. If she is not litter trained it will also mean she can't actually get away from where she goes to the toilet and will be forced to sit on/near it...this may explain her dirty bum.

I do hope you find the cause of her problems.

Sadly, that's all we have room for indoors we are getting an extension next year so that will give us more room for her. She does get out to run around but I'll look into making more space for her this week.

She did have a litter tray and was trained but one day she decided to attack it. Now whenever we put a tray in she just throws it about. She gets an occasional bit of carrot - usually just a small slice once a week - but mostly it's a small amount of either broccoli or kale which she gets every second day. I'll see how she gets on without veg and I'll keep on trying to gently loosen the poo. I read cornstarch baby powder is good for loosening rabbit droppings, is this true?
I'll experiment with her water also.

Thanks for your help

Ian&Deborah said:

Sadly, that's all we have room for indoors we are getting an extension next year so that will give us more room for her. She does get out to run around but I'll look into making more space for her this week.

She did have a litter tray and was trained but one day she decided to attack it. Now whenever we put a tray in she just throws it about. She gets an occasional bit of carrot - usually just a small slice once a week - but mostly it's a small amount of either broccoli or kale which she gets every second day. I'll see how she gets on without veg and I'll keep on trying to gently loosen the poo. I read cornstarch baby powder is good for loosening rabbit droppings, is this true?
I'll experiment with her water also.

Thanks for your help

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Have a look at the housing section. There is a brilliant sticky about different housing options for buns and I believe there is one for making the most out of a small space.
She may be throwing her litter tray around because she is bored/frustrated with being confined. My buns get very destructive when bored.

I have no idea about getting poo off a bun apart from dampening it and gently teasing the poo from them. Hopefully somebody can give you some more advice regarding this. Is she vaccinated? Even though the temperature is dropping, I'd recommend getting some rearguard for her to protect her form flystrike. x

If it's quite a lot, then a bum bath (just a couple of inches of water) might be the best option for getting her clean in the short term. What you did before sounds fine. You shouldn't usually bath rabbits but this is the exception If you don't think that she'll be ok with that, the vet might be able to shave the fur for you instead. She'll look a bit funny but if she's staying indoors it won't be a problem to be a little short temporarily.

As already mentioned, a healthy rabbit should keep themselves spotlessly clean so it's worth looking into what changes might resolve it so you don't have the problem again. Rabbit's produce two types of droppings the hard round ones and the ceceal droppings (the black ones that look like a blackberry) which they eat. When their diet is too rich or just not quite the right balance they produce too many of the later which turn into the caked on poop, or there can be a physical reason why they don't eat them when they should e.g. bad teeth or a mobility issue effecting their ability to bend.

You could try starting a food diary, cut out all foods except hay for a few days, then gradually add the foods back in one at a time and keep a record so you can see if there is a particular trigger. If she eats hay then she'll be fine (though cross) on hay only for a few days and if that stops the problem you know it is something in her diet so can investigate further. Sometimes it's one type of veg or changing dry food brands fixes it.

Hi folks,

Just a wee update on Pickles:
We have cut out the veg completely by reducing the amount slowly over the course of a week til she was getting only grass and hay. She still gets her nuggets in the morning and before we go to bed. She appears to be keeping herself a lot cleaner now and drinking more water than before. When she drinks there is a lot of gurgling/stomach rumbles which we were a bit worried about but she had her vaccinations and a check up at the vet a few days ago and everything seems fine.

We've bought some of those mesh panels shown in the housing sticky and once we've cleared some space - currently renovating the house - we'll get her a bigger enclosure built.
Thanks for all the suggestions.

I just want to mention something else, if you don't mind!

Have you thought about getting her a friend? I know you mention she wasn't socialised with other bunnies when little but actually that doesn't matter, and just because pets at home said she wouldn't get on with other bunnies doesn't mean a thing (they really are useless :roll. Bunnies are so much happier when they have a friend of their own to keep them company,especially as you say you are working more hours now. It's very rare for a bunny not to get on with another when introduced properly, and the right sexes (eg male female pair is the recommended - obviously both neutered!)

If you feel you want to adopt a friend for her, I'd recommend going to a reputable rescue who neuters, vaccinates and can bond them for you (bonding can be very nerve wracking!)

Glad Pickles is improving :thumb:

That's great you're building a bigger home for her! I'm sure she'll be really happy with having room to run around and explore

We asked the vet and they recommended we don't try to introduce her to a new rabbit, as she's lost count of the amount of bunnies she's seen with ripped ears etc due to this

Also, until we've got a bit more space organised, it would probably be unfair to both rabbits. Having said that, it's not something we would completely rule out...

Ian&Deborah said:

We asked the vet and they recommended we don't try to introduce her to a new rabbit, as she's lost count of the amount of bunnies she's seen with ripped ears etc due to this

Also, until we've got a bit more space organised, it would probably be unfair to both rabbits. Having said that, it's not something we would completely rule out...

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If they're not properly introduced on neutral ground then yes there could be fighting BUT, with an experienced person helping you,I believe any bun has a bun partner out there! Some bunnies fall in love immediately, others take a bit of convincing and several carefully matched introductions before they find their one true love!

There's lots of guides on bonding on here. There was a very timid doe at the rescue I volunteer it. Terrified of other rabbits. This week she bonded with a wonderfully calm and patient husbun twice her size! It took about a week to convince her (she hid for a lot of it) but we got there.