Question about cecotropes...

[loobie_lou]

... I've just followed a link from Tamsins signature regarding how to get your rabbits to eat more hay.

My two eat loads, they're given fresh hay morning and night in their litter trays and usually finish the lot... I'm using a mix of meadow hay and timothy hay, they both eat loads and definately prefer hay to solid food.

However... every morning, without fail, there are quite a lot of cecotropes on the tarpaulin from Jamie. Despite her eating all of the hay we give her. Is this because she gannits it down before we go to sleep? So when we wake up she's just been eating the normal pellet food?

Is there anything I can do to help this? Is there something I'm doing wrong?

xx

[loobie_lou]

bump

would love an answer from someone who knows xx

[Deelove]

I'm not someone who knows, but all of my reading suggests it's caused by a too rich diet, perhaps too many pellets/veg?. But other things such as poor mobility, over weightness or dental can cause it so check those just to make sure?

From rabbit welfare.org;
If you find lots of caecotrophs then you need to adjust the diet . Decreasing the commercial foods and increasing hay usually does the trick, but changing brands of food may be required. There are other causes of excess caecotrophs (obesity; reduced mobility; dental disease) but dietary problems are the most common. Excess caecotrophs are not diarrhoea: ignore old rabbit books that tell you to withdraw greenfood if soft droppings occur - the treatment may actually be the Hay & Veggie diet!

http://www.rabbitwelfare.co.uk/rwf/articles/feeding.htm

Hope that helps. :-)

[capel]

What sort of pellets are you feeding, and how much are they given?

[loobie_lou]

Hey, thank you both for your replies.

They're currently being fed Pets @ Home Junior and Dwarf Rabbit Pellets - as Jamie was being fed these when we purchased her from P@H.

We give them about 2 hand fulls each a day, and top the food with herbal garden naturals.

We feed them on a morning and on an evening, the food is usually completely gone before we wash the bowls and refill.

Lou x

[Jocelyn]

Hey, thank you both for your replies.

They're currently being fed Pets @ Home Junior and Dwarf Rabbit Pellets - as Jamie was being fed these when we purchased her from P@H.

We give them about 2 hand fulls each a day, and top the food with herbal garden naturals.

We feed them on a morning and on an evening, the food is usually completely gone before we wash the bowls and refill.

Lou x

I had the same problem with my 11-12 week old, I've cut her pellets right down [to a miniscule handful] and overnight it stopped :) I'm keeping an eye on her weight to make sure she doesn't lose any though :)

[Ashley]

On the packet of my food its suggest 100g to 130g depending on size of Rabbit. Maybe try reducing food and giving extra hay.

My Bun has same prob so vet suggested Burgess excel. When i got her 2weeks ago she was eating a mix and being selective about what parts of the mix she liked. I'm currently weaning her off it and may try reducing quantity if it still doesn't improve.

[ecudc]

get the off the pets at home stuff and on to science selective or Excel. Sooty was on pets at home adult when we got him and he was constantly leaving cecotropes. It's too much protein. Have not had one since switching to Excel. From reading posts, most people would choose science selective but I can't find a pet shop nearby that stocks it.

I'd also cut down the pellets to 2 egg cup fulls each. One each in the morning, one in the evening and start introducing veg very slowley. If yours prefer hay to solid you could even eventually switch to hay and veg only.