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cleaning rabbits bumbum/Ears

B

baobao

Young Bun
hey all atm my rabbit has been very lazy and he doesnt bother cleaning his bottom/tail nemore. It is always brown, dry and smells very bad around that area. I dont want to give him a bath/shower since i have heard it is not recommended and also he is quite a clean rabbit (except for the area i have mentioned).

I was wondering what is best way to clean that area. Is there a dry spray shampoo that they use on cats but for rabbits.

Also my rabbit is also three legged so i have to clean his left ear once every two weeks due to wax build up. Is it possible to use olive oil to clean his ear and if so can someone explain to me how?!?

thanks a lot

BaoBao
 
My rabbit used to get a sticky bum as she had a huge dewlap that meant she couldn't get round there to clean herself well and as she got older she also become more stiff. I followed the advice here on how to give her a wet bath http://www.bio.miami.edu/hare/buttbath.html and got it down to a fine art where I had two washing up bowls with about an inch of warm water in ( I rarely used shampoo just water) . Then I used to put her bum in the bowl so she had her back feet on the floor of it and feeling safe and then support her with front paws over my left arm and use my right hand to massage her bottom clean. I then repeated the process using the other bowl to rinse her and then towel dried her as much as I could and used a hair dryer on its lowest setting to dry her more. You have to make sure that the hairdryer doesn't blow too warm air as rabbit skin is incredibly delicate ( I always made sure my hand was in the area being blown dry to I could monitor the temperature).
Hope that makes sense and good luck with the cleaning!
 
I have a bun who sometimes needs cleaning around his bottom, usually it's just urine but I use a similar method as Glingle with a washing up bowl, only I used a small amount of shampoo the vet has given me for him. It's slightly mediacted to help with any burns he might get but you can get small animal shampoos. Might be an idea to rearguard him aginst flystrike whilst you're at it as our buns with dodgy bottoms are more at risk especially in this warmer weather. You can get some good stuff on the gorgeous guineas website.
 
It's important to get to the root of the problem. A heathly rabbit should not need it's bum cleaning. If it does then there could be an under lying problem that needs to be addressed rather than just treating the symptoms. Rabbit's don't just stop cleaning because they are lazy :)

For example, a dirty bum could mean a rabbit has arthritus that's causing him pain when he reaches around to clean himself. In which case you'd need to treat the arthritus. Another cause can be being to over weight to reach easily.

Rabbit's should produce fairly dry droppings so dirty/smelly bums aren't normal. You might find it means he needs an adjustment to his diet. For example a diet too low in fibre can cause runny poops which might be smelling/messy. What's his current diet?

Tam
 
his diet is fine

got him checked out at the vet a few weeks ago and they say he is perfectly fine

he is a house rabbit so he basically runs around a lot and gets plenty of exercise

thanks for all the info man, i am going to go out now and buy a new bottle of shampoo

ne advice on the ears!??
 
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