Continous uneaten caecatrophes

I'm forever seeing how bunnies should always eat their cecatrophes, you should never see them bla bla bla - Alfie doesn't eat all of his. He eats some, but he also leaves plenty and ends up sitting in them :roll: Is this OK?

He does have elongated tooth roots and had a dental a month ago, but other than that he's absolutely fine. He's done it for a while - not eating them - and even directly after his dental they still weren't being eaten.

He's on 0.3 metacam x2, I can drop this if I need to and was wondering if that may be contributing?

Just wondering if this is normal, I guess!

Rabbits who have a poor hay intake and who eat alot of pellet feed are prone to not eating their cecotrophs. I am guessing that Alfie does not eat much hay ?

Can you list his exact daily diet, including quantities and what he can/cant eat (due to his Dental problems) and maybe we can make some suggestions about dietary changes that may help.

It isn't normal, but what is his diet? Is he being fed mainly hay, with just a few pellets? What brand of food is he on?

I find one of mine produces too many cecotropes if he eats more than a few science selective pellets.. I only give them as a treat, and if he has more than one or two fenugreek crunchies, he also produces too much. If he has only hay ( I rotate a mixture of meadow, timothy & rye and oat, wheat & barley hays) then he doesn't produce any excess cecotropes at all.

However, I understand that some buns won't eat hay at all (my Pebbles was a dental bun that just would not eat hay except hay cookies) and this could cause a problem. However even my dental bun didn't produce excess cecotropes and he was on 100g science selective pellets a day to keep his teeth down as much as possible.

Jack's-Jane said:

Rabbits who have a poor hay intake and who eat alot of pellet feed are prone to not eating their cecotrophs. I am guessing that Alfie does not eat much hay ?

Can you list his exact daily diet, including quantities and what he can/cant eat (due to his Dental problems) and maybe we can make some suggestions about dietary changes that may help.

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He's not bad for hay at all, to be honest. The dental problems haven't (yet) become regular, he's only had the one dental but has been on Metacam for his tooth roots for at least eighteen months I'd guess.

He gets slightly less than an eggcup of Excel each morning and evening and a fresh handful of hay in the morning, with several more handfuls in the evening. His poos are fairly golden (although are a bit darker at the moment, he seems to struggle more when it's hot) and he's pretty good at eating hay. He doesn't get veg on a regular basis, although goes out on the grass pretty much every day. Veg/dandelions/grass is every couple of days at the minimum, depending on when we get some from the supermarket or garden!

I've never been concerned about his hay intake. He's not overweight, nor does he struggle to reach as he clearly eats some of them!

JemimaH said:

He's not bad for hay at all, to be honest. The dental problems haven't (yet) become regular, he's only had the one dental but has been on Metacam for his tooth roots for at least eighteen months I'd guess.

He gets slightly less than an eggcup of Excel each morning and evening and a fresh handful of hay in the morning, with several more handfuls in the evening. His poos are fairly golden (although are a bit darker at the moment, he seems to struggle more when it's hot) and he's pretty good at eating hay. He doesn't get veg on a regular basis, although goes out on the grass pretty much every day. Veg/dandelions/grass is every couple of days at the minimum, depending on when we get some from the supermarket or garden!

I've never been concerned about his hay intake. He's not overweight, nor does he struggle to reach as he clearly eats some of them!

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Excel can cause excel cecals. It might be worth changing his food to see if that helps. Having said that, one of my buns gets excess cecals when she is put on grass. Could the greens be contributing? If I were you, I would slowly cut down on the pellets and see how he goes on a hay only diet. Possibly bring it up with your vet the next time you see them and see what their view is on it. I would just be a bit careful with fiddling about with a dental bun's diet. A few excess cecals isn't the end of the world, but ideally he should be eating them all.

A more natural (i.e forage, grass, hay) diet may actually benefit his teeth. It just depends if he eats enough hay and forage to keep him happy and healthy. :thumb: You could also try to introduce some forage that benefits the guts, such as bramble leaves.

Vegan_Bunny said:

Excel can cause excel cecals. It might be worth changing his food to see if that helps. Having said that, one of my buns gets excess cecals when she is put on grass. Could the greens be contributing? If I were you, I would slowly cut down on the pellets and see how he goes on a hay only diet. Possibly bring it up with your vet the next time you see them and see what their view is on it. I would just be a bit careful with fiddling about with a dental bun's diet. A few excess cecals isn't the end of the world, but ideally he should be eating them all.

A more natural (i.e forage, grass, hay) diet may actually benefit his teeth. It just depends if he eats enough hay and forage to keep him happy and healthy. :thumb: You could also try to introduce some forage that benefits the guts, such as bramble leaves.

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If I were to change food, though, what else is there apart from SS that is 'good'? We got a taster pack free with some other food or something and he turned his nose up at it.

JemimaH said:

If I were to change food, though, what else is there apart from SS that is 'good'? We got a taster pack free with some other food or something and he turned his nose up at it.

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Well, I would suggest SS, but I know it can be difficult to get hold of. If it was me, I'd just cut out the pellet food altogether so I would know for definite if that was causing the problem. You need to slowly reduce it if you decide to go down that route, just as you slowly introduce new foods.

You could also try introducing an additional pellet. I use Protexin for my buns (mainly for Xena who has a sensitive gut) and it does wonders. You just add a scoop to their usual food. It's high in fibre and probiotics. :thumb: You can get it online..I started using it when my bun was producing excess cecals but as I mentioned in my last post, it turned out that it was grass, readigrass and probably stress causing them. However, since being on the Protexin she has not had such a problem when having grass introduced into her diet. :thumb:

The (generally) recommended amount of pellets for a normal sized rabbit is one eggcupful a day, so I would consider very gradually reducing to that amount and increasing the amount of hay. Perhaps get a free sample from HayforPets so that you can add variety.

Metacam might be causing some cecal dysbiosis so I would discuss this issue with the Vet


If he is a good hay eater I'd get him onto a hay/forage only diet with an occasional Fibafirst stick as a treat if you feel as the you are depriving him by giving him no pellets.

http://www.thehayexperts.co.uk/fibafirst-rabbit.html

Before doing this you must be certain that he is eating alot of hay, not just picking at it now and again but really tucking into it. This is especially important as he is on daily Metacam.You will need to keep a close eye on his weight too, so weigh him at least twice a week

Finally, the problem will put him at high risk of Flystrike, so do be ultra vigilant about that issue

http://www.rabbitwelfare.co.uk/resources/content/leaflet_pdfs/flystrike_sep_05.pdf

Aargh woken up this morning to find him refusing pellets. He's eaten dandelions though, which makes me think it's his teeth as he's avoiding hard food?

JemimaH said:

Aargh woken up this morning to find him refusing pellets. He's eaten dandelions though, which makes me think it's his teeth as he's avoiding hard food?

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I would assume it's teeth. If he stops eating altogether he may need a trip to the vets today.

Also the metacam dose he is on is quite low, so perhaps discuss this with your vet, perhaps he isn't eating as much as you thing due to pain?

Vegan_Bunny said:

I would assume it's teeth. If he stops eating altogether he may need a trip to the vets today.

Also the metacam dose he is on is quite low, so perhaps discuss this with your vet, perhaps he isn't eating as much as you thing due to pain?

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I have spoken to the vets and we're syringe feeding today (unless he gets worse in which case we'll take him in) as the exotics vet is not on call this wkend, although can be brought in if it is an emergency, and will take him in first thing tomorrow. He's pretty fine in himself, but i wonder about increasing his metacam to 0.4 tonight?

Bumping this up again as I'm getting fed up.

When I last posted Alfie had been doing funny things with his mouth/not eating. We were about to take him to the emergency vets at 3pm when he suddenly perked up, eating of his own accord, totally back to normal etc. Took him to the vets following day and there were no visible spurs :? Sarah said that he's quite a chompy bunny with the 'scope, his mouth is constantly moving so it's quite hard to see anyway, but there was nothing jumping out at her like last time. So the problem isn't with his teeth.

Anyway. I've just had to bring him inside to live now as I went out to check on him (thank god I did!) and he'd got himself in a right mess, poo stuck everywhere and he stank. I cleaned him up sharpish, checked him (no signs of flystrike) and he's now indoors as I just cannot risk it again. He's been very lucky this time as it is BOILING.

I don't know what to do and it's just making me fed up. His pellets are going down as is his metacam (slowly) but it doesn't seem to be making any difference and I'm terrified he'll get flystrike even though he's indoors

When was his last Dental ? It is totally impossible to see 100% of the oral cavity of a Rabbit whilst they are awake.

Jack's-Jane said:

When was his last Dental ? It is totally impossible to see 100% of the oral cavity of a Rabbit whilst they are awake.

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Oh yeah, I know that, but his last dental was on 13th of June and I meant that the problematic tooth (or even teeth, I don't know how many there were that needed sorting out) was visible then even with his chomping and swallowing that he does.

He DOES eat some of his cecatrophes, don't get me wrong, it's just not all and the ones he doesn't eat, he sits in.