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Strange Toilet Behaviour ??

Lynn

Mama Doe
Wondering if anyone has a bunny / bunnies with the same toilet behaviour as The Robster.

As most of you know, the Robster hasn't been a well boy lately, and I have become toilet habit obsessed :oops: . Rob goes out to his playhouse / run during the day, and then comes into the house at night. Before he was ill, he has always done the vast majority of his pooing in the run outside, and did very little poos in our house at night. He uses his litter trays inside for peeing, so seems to do this both in the house and outside. Never really thought much about this before he got ill.

He has been in and out of hospital lately, and every time we get him back from hospital he poos a lot in the house overnight for the first few nights, and then slowly it goes back to doing nothing inside at nights, and everything outside. When he is in hospital, apparently he poos at all times. :roll:

I don't think it can be good for him to do no poos from 6pm at night to 8am in morning. Am I worrying over nothing - do any other bunnies do this sort of thing? You hear others talking about messy currant machines running all over the house :wink: . Rob is very 'tidy', but I don't want this at the expense of his health - could this be an indication all is not well ? Do some buns just poo more than others, as he hasn't ever been a great pooer? Oh dear, so many questions :roll:
 
What time of night does he settle down? Does he go to sleep through the night? Does he munch away on hay/food all evening?


Angela
 
It could be a territorial thing. Mine always do the most poo outside of their cage just after I've vacuumed. Then they go back to just pooing in their cages. Also, the quantity of poo varies depending on how territorial they're feeling. If the two separate groups of bunnies are out with only the babygate separating them, there'll be a ton of poos along the boundary, and in five minutes they can do what looks like a whole day's worth of poo.

So if he's pooing a lot at the hospital it's probably because it's unfamiliar territory. Then the increase in poo just after he gets home might be him reasserting himself on his territory. Once he's settled in again and the place smells right, he doesn't need to go on a total poo bender and settles into old habits.

I also find that a lot of poos appear as if by magic as soon as the cages are cleaned out, but that after that the amount of poo increases only slowly by comparison. I don't think it's that he's holding it in, rather that at other times he's stepping up production.
 
Ok Bertie your such a smarty pants! Thats exactly what it will be Lynn, he'll be marking his own terriority once he gets home and then after a couple of days be satisfied and go back to pooping in the litter trays or not at all, I know some of my guys are too busy sleeping most of the night to be pooping.


Angela
 
Thumps said:
What time of night does he settle down? Does he go to sleep through the night? Does he munch away on hay/food all evening?


Angela

Mmhhh, he comes in about 6pm - he's not caged at all, so that is kind of him for the night - he can wander / sleep as he pleases. I give him some veggies just before I go to bed, and he eats this / hay / any pellets he has left from morning overnight. He's not a big hay eater - picks at this / readigrass.

Bernie, could be a territorial thing, as he is also more difficult to pick up when he is outside - doddle to pick up inside.

Just a bit worried as my vet once said to me that bunnies can produce up to a hundred droppings a day - Rob only does about 25-30 outside, and very little inside (counting them does seem sad I know :wink: )
 
Lynn said:
Just a bit worried as my vet once said to me that bunnies can produce up to a hundred droppings a day - Rob only does about 25-30 outside, and very little inside (counting them does seem sad I know :wink: )

If you keep each day's collection in a jar labelled with the date, I'm going to be very worried. :shock: Is it possible that some of them are escaping your eagle-eyed poo collection? Or maybe Rob sees you coming and quickly stomps them into the garden because you get a chance to steal them?

I've no idea how much poo is 'normal' I'm afraid, and with 6 bunnies in the house I have no intention of collecting them up for a count. :p
 
Bertie said:
Is it possible that some of them are escaping your eagle-eyed poo collection? Or maybe Rob sees you coming and quickly stomps them into the garden because you get a chance to steal them?

Hee hee :lol: - no way are they escaping me :shock: . And as for Rob hiding them, he actually looks at me like 'oy - mess here, get it cleaned up mum'. It's like he doesn't like his own poo - if he ever does any in the house, he runs through to the spare bedroom, drops them on the floor, looks at you to clean them up, then runs back to his own room :roll:

I've no idea how much poo is 'normal' I'm afraid, and with 6 bunnies in the house I have no intention of collecting them up for a count.

Oh go on, put my mind at rest - what about if I lend you my pooometer :lol: :lol:
 
Lynn said:
Oh go on, put my mind at rest - what about if I lend you my pooometer :lol: :lol:

I'm not good with gadgets. Tell you what, send me your address and I'll sweep the living room and post you my findings. :D
 
Bertie said:
I'm not good with gadgets. Tell you what, send me your address and I'll sweep the living room and post you my findings. :D

:lol: :lol: Think I'll pass if that's OK - if my vet is right, I'd be getting 600 a day via Royal Mail :wink:
 
Evo doesn't always poo overnight, and it does worry me sometimes. I have been know to get up at 6am to check, and put a treat in his litter tray, and some food in his bowl in the hope that he poops before I get up later. Usually works.

I find that his usual habit is......
  • morning (before and after breakfast) - plenty of poos, but quite small
  • after lunch - very few poos at all
  • after his tea - from 7pm lots of big poos
  • bedtime until morning - very few if any poos

When I know his tummy isn't quite right, I do usually take them out of his litter tray as he does them. :oops: I guess I'm lucky that he does all of his in the litter tray.
 
Rallybunny said:
Evo doesn't always poo overnight, and it does worry me sometimes. I have been know to get up at 6am to check, and put a treat in his litter tray, and some food in his bowl in the hope that he poops before I get up later. Usually works.

Aha - a 'poop o checker' after my own heart. :lol:

I guess my main concern is that Rob doesn't ever really do 'lots' in my eyes, but because he's my only bun, I guess I don't really have anything to compare that to :roll:
 
Don't know if this is any help, but roo is a housebunny and he has one litter tray in his cage for overnight or if we go out, and another litter tray for when he has the run of the house. He only goes a wee in his cage tray and poo's and wee's in the other tray. He does poo alot and we empty both trays once a day, Roo will let us know if the one in the house is too full of poo's for his liking by dragging the tray over to me. looking up as if to say "It needs empyting please". :D
 
Just for you, I counted how many poos Evo did in a single "sitting".......... 41! :oops: Think that's quite a lot though, I reckon its normally about 20.
 
I would think the poo's coming home from the vets & at the vets are probably the terrotirial thing.

He probably does poo at night but cecals which he eats rather than the poo that gets left in the litter tray.

Tam
 
Rallybunny said:
Just for you, I counted how many poos Evo did in a single "sitting".......... 41! :oops: Think that's quite a lot though, I reckon its normally about 20.

Go Evo !!! Poopmaster !!! What are you feeding him Rallybunny :lol: :wink:

Thanks everyone - I reckon I am probably being a bit paranoid over this.
 
With what you and Rob have been through the past few weeks, I'm not surprised you're concerned Lynn!!!! But then again it was interesting (if not a bit strange and compelling :lol: ) to read about the others 'rabbit habits' :lol:

We had a 'guess the number of purlies in the jar competition' at our bunny fayre last March. We used Mojo and Grace's purlies (they're mega huge!) and managed to fit 1934 into the big sweetie jar (that was collected over 4 days :shock: ), I know cos I counted them individually (and lost count several times!) :lol:

Louise is the Purlie Queen and can fill a whole corner litter tray in one day! (thank goodness she's been rehomed :shock: )

When we first got Jasper, his were so small they were about 3mm in diameter, and black and hard. He now does 'normal' sized healthy ones.

Now Gigi on the other hand does lovely 'blonde' crumbly ones, almost pure hay, and copious amounts as well.

Sna'ba' is the same, she does 'bonde' crumbly ones too, and she smells like a cow (but in a nice way!)

All the others are just normal.
 
bunnyhuggger said:
We had a 'guess the number of purlies in the jar competition' at our bunny fayre last March. We used Mojo and Grace's purlies (they're mega huge!) and managed to fit 1934 into the big sweetie jar (that was collected over 4 days :shock: ), I know cos I counted them individually (and lost count several times!) :lol:

Oh my God - that's almost 250 each per day !!!!!! :lol: :lol:

Can I send Rob to you for the weekend and see if you can get him on par with that ?? :wink:
 
Louise is the Purlie Queen and can fill a whole corner litter tray in one day!

Blueberry fills a large corner litter tray a day easily! - at least most of them go in it!! (I'm gonna be counting them now as well after this thread)
 
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