Low calcium foods that won't cause gas?!

Just wondering if anyone can give any advice about the diet I am giving Buster, he is still baffling us with his symptoms. The main ones are high levels if calcium carbonate crystals in the urine, incontinence (and wet bum), excessive drinking, excessive urinating and a grumbly tum. Poos are very big, round, golden and extremely crumbly.

At the moment he has unlimited water and Timothy Hay. Also meadow hay to line his litter tray. Eats LOADS of hay. He's fed the Supreme Urinary Tract Health Formula pellets (approx 20g morning and evening). I hand feed some of them to make sure he gets all his meds which I put on each stick. Also has a small portion of celery, cucumber, dill, mint and parsley in the afternoon. As I'm giving him Infacol three times a day this gives me the chance to put some on his veggies. He gets a small sprinkle of Pro-C probiotic one daily. I have started to introduce some leaves which were sent in my RU SS package (pressies were in a gorgeous bag but not wrapped so as soon as I saw the leaves I wanted to try them, naughty me! )

How else can I help is grumbly tummy but without introducing too much calcium? I was thinking about cutting out pellets altogether but he's lost weight so needs to keep his calorie intake up. Shall I order more wild forage and cut out the veg? His poos seemed to really improve when he started eating veg again. At a loss and trawling the net for help has been unsuccessful so far

Grumbly tummy? Do you mean gas?

I wouldn't feed Pro C, too high in sugar, I'd feed a proper one, like any from the Protexin brand.

Has he had ultrasounds/xrays of the gut and kidneys/bladder? And has he had blood tests?

I'd reduce the pellets a bit if his weight is fine.

Poor Buster.
I can see why you're baffled by his symptoms - TBH so am I.
In fact the usual problem with a sludge bunny is that they don't drink enough.

Sorry to ask a lot of questions.
Does Buster get sludge in his litter tray - white urine which coats the poohs like single cream?
Has the vet checked that his bladder hasn't filled up with fine calcium crystals or larger stone, acting like a valve which he can't pee out, so he has to do lots of little pees?
Has the vet checked the alkalinity of the wee by any chance? It's called pH & is done with a dip stick.
If Buster is drinking a lot the pH should be lower than usual, which actually reduces the formation of calcium crystals.:?
This would fit more with a kdney problem rather than a bladder problem.

I would make a guess that his tummy troubles are caused by pain, perhaps from urinating.

Sounds like gas to me, his tummy rumbles like mad! He's had the works, I would link back to my previous threads but can't on my phone, sorry. His bloods are all within normal range, except his neutrophil count which was slightly low. E cuniculi negative although just started a treatment course of panacur at my request just in case. Bladder and kidney ultrasounds with and without contrast done, a slight query over whether his urethra inserts into bladder in an odd position. The vet said it was difficult to interpret.

He was 2.12kg a month ago, now 2kg exactly x

His urine looks normal since he changed to a low calcium diet, it used to be heavily sedimented but is much better now. Although his urine culture at the lab commented it remained heavily sedimented, this isn't visible to the naked eye. There is no sludge or stone visible on X-ray. The vet said his urinalysis was all ok, he didn't comment specifically on pH so I'm not sure.

Thank you for your input, he is so depressed and no longer the busy little (naughty!) bunny he used to be. It's very sad x

Thank you for your reply Sammywoo.
It looks as if you've got the bladder side very nicely under control.:thumb:
Buster is being a good boy for his bladder probs by drinking lots too.

Yes his tummy issues sound like gas to me too.
I have to assume that the physical examination of the other parts of his body was completely normal.

The trouble with drinking alot is that it makes a bunny feel full so they can't eat as much either fibre or nutrients as they need hence the weight loss & proneness to a sluggish gut. I invented the term "they've got a throughput problem".
I tend to use safe shrub & tree leaves to improve gut motility when diet is good but I don't know calcium values.
I use blackberry leaves a lot. Nutritional value is slightly superior to hay.
This is a good paper. The author recognises differences in analysis of leaves gathered through the 4 seasons. It's pointless looking at results for a different part of the plant eg the blackberry fruits, cos they can be so different as to be meaningless. http://vbs.psu.edu/extension/resources-repository/publications/forage-quality-Jun06.pdf
To save you reading lots, table 2 is what we need.

Comparing mixed grass hay per 100gm dry material with blackberry.
Hay ------------------------- Calcium - (Average) 0.71 (Range) 0.43 - 0.99
Blackberry leaves --------....".............".........1.2.........".......0.84 -1.62

I'll do my best with other leaves I use but the chances of success are remote! (Sorry when I post the alignment bunches up:?)

Thank you for the info Thumps, I will look into ordering some blackberry leaves tomorrow :thumb: How much would you give per day? Makes sense that there's a "throughput" problem, I like that phrase

The vet couldn't identify any dental issues, fractures etc. He said the low neutrophil count could indicate infection/inflammation or a problem with the immune system. However, his second urine culture came back negative (needle into bladder). The first (clean catch) showed e-coli and streptococcus. He did have two courses of antibiotics at the time to treat the UTI and in response to the low neutrophil count (the lab report suggested antibiotics). I wondered if the antibiotics could've upset the balance in his gut?

Also, is it healthy that his poos are big and really crumbly? The vet said they look weird! I thought that's what we were aiming for? :?

Sammywoo I miswrote the calcium in the Blackberry leaves it's 1.2 almost double that of hay, but Buster won't be eating so much.
Raspberry is said to have a higher calcium than blackberry.
Another mainstay is hawthorn but I can't find a quantative analysis of the mineral content for European hawthorns.
Apple leaves are good too as are apple twigs.