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Cecal dysbiosis made worse by hay only diet

BattleKat

BattleKat

Wise Old Thumper
Obi's been struggling with cecal dysbiosis for a long time now. He had coccidiosis which we treated for and he's now tested clear. Until now, he would occassional have small amounts of totally liquid poo (usually after a stressful event) and almost always had some very moist squishy poops in amongst his normal ones in the litter tray.
We recently switched him on to a hay only diet to try and solve the problem. His normal poops have improved but the liquid poo has got much worse and we're still getting the odd moist/squishy regular poos. For the last week he's been leaving quite large puddles of the liquid poo at least once a day.
He has some small spurs on his teeth but they don't seem to be affecting him, he's still chomping through loads of hay every day.

I'm going to take him back to the vet asap but I wondered if anyone had any experience and new what might be a good next step? I hate going in with no idea.
 
BattleKat said:
Obi's been struggling with cecal dysbiosis for a long time now. He had coccidiosis which we treated for and he's now tested clear. Until now, he would occassional have small amounts of totally liquid poo (usually after a stressful event) and almost always had some very moist squishy poops in amongst his normal ones in the litter tray.
We recently switched him on to a hay only diet to try and solve the problem. His normal poops have improved but the liquid poo has got much worse and we're still getting the odd moist/squishy regular poos. For the last week he's been leaving quite large puddles of the liquid poo at least once a day.
He has some small spurs on his teeth but they don't seem to be affecting him, he's still chomping through loads of hay every day.

I'm going to take him back to the vet asap but I wondered if anyone had any experience and new what might be a good next step? I hate going in with no idea.
Click to expand...

Is he losing weight ?
 
How long has he been on the hay only diet?
I guess you have tried some pre/pro-biotics like fibreplex
 
He may have lost a small amount of weight since the huge lots of liquid poo started, my scales we misbehaving yesterday so it was hard to tell.

He's been on the hay only diet for just over two weeks. Initially it was ok, then someone in the next street was using professional level fireworks which scared the literal **** out of him and it had been really bad and steadily getting worse since then (normally he'd recover in a day or two from a scare like that).

Protexin pro fibre was one of his regular foods and I've been adding that back in since Saturday night to see if it would help. Since then the amount of liquid poo has seriously declined. I think we had a few drips yesterday and nothing so far overnight or this morning. I did have an oddity last night where he had some normal fibrous golden poos but they were all shaped and squished together like cecals. Don't think I've ever seen that before.

Besides the fact his digestive system isn't working at all how it's supposed to, he seems absolutely fine. He's happy and bouncy and his physical condition (eyes, nose, coat) is good.

ETA: no liquid poo at all so far today
 
Last edited:
He's been on the metronidazole for a week now but he is still having the liquid poo. Does anyone happen to know if that's likely to clear up once the antibiotic is stopped? I Feel so defeated.
 
BattleKat said:
He's been on the metronidazole for a week now but he is still having the liquid poo. Does anyone happen to know if that's likely to clear up once the antibiotic is stopped? I Feel so defeated.
Click to expand...

Unless there is a Metronidazole sensitive bacterial infection causing the liquid poo Metronidazole will make no difference x
 
I know I'm clutching at straws because you've never seen him and you're not a vet, but do you have any idea what a next logical step would be? The vet said dental would be the next thing to do as he has some very small spurs but I can't imagine that's the cause.

The symptoms:
He frequently has completely liquid poo. Sometimes he seems to think that it'll be cecotrophs and bends round to eat it but it's just puddles on the floor.
He semi-regularly has very moist formed poos and normal poo coated in the brown liquid.
Occasionally he has pasty poo
His normal poos are good but they always have a slight coating to them. You can't see it but they're slightly slick and sometimes sticky if you touch them.

He's been treated for coccidiosis which he tested positive for a long time ago and has since tested negative
We've tried a hay only diet but that made things worse so he's now on protexin pro fibre rabbit which helps but doesn't solve the issue.
He's had a course of metronidazole which hasn't helped.

For what it's worth, his bad patches are usually triggered by stress. He's a very nervous rabbit and gets stressed easily.

Poor guy is on his own at the moment and I'm desperate to get him a friend but it feels like I need to get this sorted first.
 
BattleKat said:
I know I'm clutching at straws because you've never seen him and you're not a vet, but do you have any idea what a next logical step would be? The vet said dental would be the next thing to do as he has some very small spurs but I can't imagine that's the cause.

The symptoms:
He frequently has completely liquid poo. Sometimes he seems to think that it'll be cecotrophs and bends round to eat it but it's just puddles on the floor.
He semi-regularly has very moist formed poos and normal poo coated in the brown liquid.
Occasionally he has pasty poo
His normal poos are good but they always have a slight coating to them. You can't see it but they're slightly slick and sometimes sticky if you touch them.

He's been treated for coccidiosis which he tested positive for a long time ago and has since tested negative
We've tried a hay only diet but that made things worse so he's now on protexin pro fibre rabbit which helps but doesn't solve the issue.
He's had a course of metronidazole which hasn't helped.

For what it's worth, his bad patches are usually triggered by stress. He's a very nervous rabbit and gets stressed easily.

Poor guy is on his own at the moment and I'm desperate to get him a friend but it feels like I need to get this sorted first.
Click to expand...

Has he had a full blood profile run ? Coccidiosis can effect the Liver. A negative fecal test for Coccidiosis can be misleading. Is he maintaining his weight ? Is his coat very dry and ‘starry’ looking ?
 
He hasn't but I can get that done.

He seems to be maintaining his weight but I haven't weighed him for a couple of weeks. His coat is lovely although he's heavily moulting at the moment. Very silky.

Thanks so much for your support.
 
BattleKat said:
He hasn't but I can get that done.

He seems to be maintaining his weight but I haven't weighed him for a couple of weeks. His coat is lovely although he's heavily moulting at the moment. Very silky.

Thanks so much for your support.
Click to expand...

Rather than a Dental I’d prefer to get his bloods checked first

This gives some information about Hepatic ( Liver) coccidiosis (scroll down), there are graphic images on the link

http://www.medirabbit.com/EN/GI_diseases/Protozoal_diseases/Cocc_en.htm
 
I'm sorry Obi is struggling & hope if anything shows up on the diagnostics hey can help you work out whats going on .

Decades ago I had a bunny who used to do liquid poo - FHB though be had something similar to IBS.
 
It definitely seems similar to IBS, stress affects him really badly.

Thanks for the link Jane, I'll have a good read and chat to my vet about it.
 
joey&boo said:
I'm sorry Obi is struggling & hope if anything shows up on the diagnostics hey can help you work out whats going on .

Decades ago I had a bunny who used to do liquid poo - FHB though be had something similar to IBS.
Click to expand...
BattleKat said:
It definitely seems similar to IBS, stress affects him really badly.

Thanks for the link Jane, I'll have a good read and chat to my vet about it.
Click to expand...
Very interesting, this is what Atticus suffers from. He's been diagnosed with megacolon, but I think he's basically got ibs [emoji51] I have no fixes though, he only eats hay, still gets unwell daily, but it's wayyyy better than everything else I've tried!

Sent from my Pixel 4 XL using Tapatalk
 
Graciee said:
Very interesting, this is what Atticus suffers from. He's been diagnosed with megacolon, but I think he's basically got ibs [emoji51] I have no fixes though, he only eats hay, still gets unwell daily, but it's wayyyy better than everything else I've tried!

Sent from my Pixel 4 XL using Tapatalk
Click to expand...

My boy was on quite a few drugs. He was in a shocking state when FHB first saw him. We did get a treatment plan for him that worked. He was so skinny though & any attempt to bring in other foods would cause he a relapse. This was 2006-7 ish time, I assume (?) he was eating hay but mainly his diet was massive bundles of herbs daily. If I'd known about foraging maybe he'd have tolerated that too.

I feel for you both - digestion is so important to rabbits its super stressful when even doing all the "right" things doesn't make them right
 
Just to add though Ralph was not a stressy bunny, far from it - he was super extroverted & something of a party animal
 
How very stressful for Obi and you with constant cecal dysbiosis:(
I also think blood samples would be a good idea.
I also have a rabbit who very easily gets cecal dysbiosis and is really easily stressed. My vet suggested one time, when my rabbit had a really bad episode of dysbiosis, feeding him cecals from a healthy bunny. We didn't do it though as we couldn't get any from a healthy rabbit. But perhaps something to discuss with your vet.

What kind of hay is he eating? My bunny usually does best with really "hard"and chalky hay. But perhaps he is already eating that.

Another thing that has helped our bunny a lot is me keeping a diary every day on input, output, general behaviour, if he has get scared by something etc. That way we have been able to see what has happened in the days leading up to an episode of dysbiosis, it'not so easy to remember exactly what he has been eating and if he has been scared and by what in the previous days. This has helped us identify some stresstriggers for him and minimize them:)
 
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Thanks Wali,

Unfortunately he's single at the moment so there's not another rabbit to get cecals from but I do think it would help. It feels like at some point he got out of balance and now he can't consume his cecals it's too much to get himself back where he should be :(

He's on timothy and ings hays which he eats tonnes of. He also gets some fresh grass and some readigrass. I'll scout some of the local farms and see if anyone has any particularly hard hay.

I got an IBS app for him which was great but I stopped using it when we cut out everything except hay and protexin. I'll start again when we start adding bits back in to his diet though.
 
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