Pre Mega-colon?

Hi everyone,
I have an 8 month old cross breed male neutered rabbit whom I adopted. He is my first rabbit and is a free range very active, house rabbit. Overall he seems quite healthy, apart from a respiratory infection when he was very young, which was the reason he was up for adoption as pets at home are not allowed to sell rabbits that have had health problems. The only problem he does seem to have is problems with digestion, he seems to have odd oval and log shaped poo's mixed in with round poo's. He produces the right amount of poo and I clean his litter twice a day and keep a constant check on his poo. He does produce Cecal's and every now and again I will find one, I usually find that too many greens make him produce excess Cecal's. His stomach is very sensitive so I only feed a small amount of kale every other day. Along with that he has oxbow Timothy hay, burgess forage grass and a sprinkle of dried herbs which he picks at throughout the day. He has science selective pellets in the morning, just an egg cup full and a scoop of pro-fibre pellets in the evening. For treats he may get a slice of banana or Apple but this isn't every day, his main treats are fibrefirst sticks which he has about 4 of throughout the day. He absolutely loves these and the pro-fibre. When I noticed his oval/log shaped and odd sized poo's I took him to the vets along with a sample (she seemed to think it was hilarious that I had brought a sample to show her!) she took his temperature and gave him antibiotics as she said it was high and worming medication and said goodbye to us. She didn't seem to think anything of the odd shaped poo's. I am now in the process of changing vets and although Ludo is not sick and I seem to manage his diet well, I just wondered if anyone had any advice as I'm pretty sure he is pre Mega colon - every now and again he will not poo for a few hours and I give him a few drops of pineapple juice in water and rub his stomach which works very well. I also give pro-c probiotic in his water and have bio-lapis on hand for stressful situations like moving home (which we are doing on Monday!)
Any more diet advice would be greatly appreciated as we move home on Monday, I don't want to take him to the new vets I have found for a few weeks as I want him to settle in first, he really, really hates going the vets and getting put in his carry box and can get rather stressed out. I am aware that this home move will stress him for a few days and also as he not sick, I thought it best leave him for a few weeks, I would just like to change vets so I can get to the bottom of the odd shaped poo's.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

jacks-jane may be able to offer some advice on this, hopefully she will see your thread

Sorry I seem to have missed this thread.

I'd go right back to basics with his diet. By that I mean cut out all fruit and Veg. Does he eat A LOT of hay ? Not just pick at the odd strand ? In my experience Rabbits exhibiting the symptoms you describe do much MUCH better on a totally pellet free diet. Not even Fibafirst sticks.

I am a bit short on time just now and I will try to come back on to add a bit more about what has helped my Rabbit. But for now a brief list of things I'd try :

1- First weigh your Rabbit to have a 'base line' to work from as you make dietry changes. IE to check he does not rapidly loose a lot of weight

2- Be CERTAIN he is a good hay eater and then offer him a wide variety of hays 24/7

3- Cut out all fruit and Veg, but maybe offer a few Sprigs of Coriander instead

4- Cut out all pellets, do so by reducing the amount over a period of about a week. Continue to weigh him every other day to regularly monitor his weight.

5- Dried herbs and Forages are also usually well tolerated

6- Add Avipro Plus to his drinking water. AP is a prebiotic (NOT a probiotic) It can aid the absorption of dietary nutrients and unlike PRObiotics, PREbiotics are NOT destroyed by digestive enzymes

https://www.viovet.co.uk/Vetark_Avi...tccU8txn3PVQNQdD5w02bieTKmj-qgVmhYaAr3e8P8HAQ

http://patient.info/doctor/probiotics-and-prebiotics

The Hay Experts offer a great selection of Hays and Forages :

https://www.thehayexperts.co.uk/

Galens Garden is another good company

https://galensgarden.co.uk/

Will try and pop back to this thread later today !

Thanks very much for your advice. I will order some AviPro now. He does like his hay. I have tried him all different types and he seems to love the pets at home own brand Timothy the best, which really annoys me because oxbow looks much better quality, but he just picks at it, where as if I put Pets at Home brand in he will be there for a good 45 minutes eating it, and keep going back. He likes all the burgess forage hays which I mix in with timothy, and I give him dried herbs. Would you cut out the profibre pellets as well? As I saw these recommend for Mega-colon rabbits. Thanks again for advice.

mcpowe said:

Thanks very much for your advice. I will order some AviPro now. He does like his hay. I have tried him all different types and he seems to love the pets at home own brand Timothy the best, which really annoys me because oxbow looks much better quality, but he just picks at it, where as if I put Pets at Home brand in he will be there for a good 45 minutes eating it, and keep going back. He likes all the burgess forage hays which I mix in with timothy, and I give him dried herbs. Would you cut out the profibre pellets as well? As I saw these recommend for Mega-colon rabbits. Thanks again for advice.

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I can only go on my personal experience which is that cutting out all pellets of any kind has proved to be amazingly successful. I am not saying that what I did is always right for every Rabbit with similar GI tract issues. Each Rabbit will be unique in their specific needs and in my case it took almost a year of trial and error to get to where we are now. At one stage we did not expect my Rabbit to see his first Birthday. But he did and he celebrated his 2nd Birthday a couple of weeks ago.

I hope that you will find a feeding regime that suits your Rabbit. It takes time and there may be set-backs along the way. But it is possible to get on top of what may be a chronic GI tract problem to enable the Rabbit to lead a happy and comfortable life xx

mcpowe said:

Thanks very much for your advice. I will order some AviPro now. He does like his hay. I have tried him all different types and he seems to love the pets at home own brand Timothy the best, which really annoys me because oxbow looks much better quality, but he just picks at it, where as if I put Pets at Home brand in he will be there for a good 45 minutes eating it, and keep going back. He likes all the burgess forage hays which I mix in with timothy, and I give him dried herbs. Would you cut out the profibre pellets as well? As I saw these recommend for Mega-colon rabbits. Thanks again for advice.

Click to expand...

Hi there and welcome to the Forum :wave:

This article may contain some interesting reading :

http://www.medirabbit.com/EN/GI_diseases/Mega/mega_en.htm

Please don't suddenly cut the pellets out of his diet (I didn't see your thread previously, sorry) as this may be too drastic. You can reduce them gradually. Feeding the hays that he will eat is great. Please cut out fruit and probably also veg for the time being.

You mention Avipro. The problem with that is twofold:

Firstly there is no evidence that probiotics and probiotics will help in any way, as the bacteria is killed by the rabbit's stomach acid before having a chance to do any good (reference Frances Harcourt Brown and other exotic specialists).

Secondly, whilst probiotics/prebiotics may do no harm, if you're going to feed them I strongly advise to use Bio Lapis, as Avipro has sugar content which is counter productive with mega colon buns (I have experimented with these on my own mega colon bunnies)

Good luck, please keep me posted on how he does

We've had some runny, smelly poo today along with normal poo, But I'm not sure if this is down to stress from the move. I've got some biolapis - which I've given him today in water. If no better later, he is going to the vets!

Jack's-Jane said:

I can only go on my personal experience which is that cutting out all pellets of any kind has proved to be amazingly successful. I am not saying that what I did is always right for every Rabbit with similar GI tract issues. Each Rabbit will be unique in their specific needs and in my case it took almost a year of trial and error to get to where we are now. At one stage we did not expect my Rabbit to see his first Birthday. But he did and he celebrated his 2nd Birthday a couple of weeks ago.

I hope that you will find a feeding regime that suits your Rabbit. It takes time and there may be set-backs along the way. But it is possible to get on top of what may be a chronic GI tract problem to enable the Rabbit to lead a happy and comfortable life xx

Click to expand...

This has been my experience as well. I have one rabbit now with mega colon, and one in the past with similar symptoms, and both have been the most sensitive to pellets and other foods high in carbs/sugars. One couldn't have pellets of any kind, and my current bun only gets a tiny pinch of pellets each day. The rest of the diet consists of grass hay(currently timothy), select forage, and some select leafy greens. I never feed fruit, grains, or other high carb foods. With my rabbit now, he also has to get a lot of indigestible fiber from stalky hay. If he eats too much soft leafy hay, his poop becomes large and log shaped, as well as moist and spongy(as opposed to smaller and more normal sized oval shaped poop that is a normal consistency). With a lot of indigestible fiber from the stalky hay, his fecal poop is almost somewhat normal, and he also has been able to maintain a healthy weight on his current diet.

As Jane stated, I too can't say whether or not this same diet will work for your bun as they all can have different sensitivities and dietary needs, and what works for one may not work for another. This is just what I have figured out works best for my rabbit, through trial and error as well.

Some essential points if pellets are removed from the diet. It's important to very closely monitor food consumption, the rabbit's weight, and overall general health. Ensure that lots of hay is actually being eaten to make up for no pellets in the diet, make sure the rabbit maintains a healthy weight, and that no unintended health issues pop up as a result of the dietary change.

Also work closely with your rabbit savvy vet. And yes, do find a vet that takes you bringing in a poo sample seriously(as any rabbit savvy vet would), as changes in poop are one of the first indicators of a health issue in rabbits. You may also want to have a fecal test done to rule out parasites, as they can sometimes be a cause of odd shaped fecal poop. Best of luck and I hope you are able to find the answers and solutions you need for your bun.