Update - More Cecos.

I went to feed the buns this morning and found the biggest pile of cecotropes I've seen so far, this time on Hamilton and Jellybean's side We haven't had any for days and I thought we'd finally sorted things out.

Lily and Maple have been having just fresh parsely and coriander for breakfast (a really small amount of Parsley because someone said about it being toxic in large amounts, so just one long stalk each) - no cabbage for them anymore. Lily doesn't seem to do her scrunchy stomach anymore, but her poops are still egg shaped.

It's the same for Hamilton and Jellybean, although I'm still giving cabbage in small amounts. They were actually fine with just cabbage, so now I'm wondering if the fresh herbs are causing the cecos. Jellybean has been doing a bit of scrunching up after eating greens now, but only for 2 minutes and then she's fine.

I'm trying to work out if there's anything else that could have caused the cecotropes. They're mainly eating timothy hay now, as they seem to have gone off of meadow hay. Would that make any difference? They are only getting a very small amount, an egg cup of extruded pellets each.

I'm getting so stressed over the fresh greens that I'm wondering whether to cut them out completely and buy a bulk of dried herbs. They're used to getting 'breakfast' first thing in the morning, and it keeps them busy outside whilst I clean out the shed. So I don't really want to change that routine.

I wonder if two factors could be contributing - 1 that the garden has been a bog for the past couple of months, so much rainfall - just mud and no gras in their run. Lily's poops were normal in the summer when she was eating grass daily. 2 - could the cold be slowing their digestion down? And therefore causing cecos?

I should emphasise that they are generally really happy, energetic bunnies, I just feel totally thrown off by these cecotropes because after more than three years of bunny ownership, I have never seen them, so I am wondering what's going wrong there.

What would you do in my shoes?

Could there be a predator about at night ? Stress is one possible cause of uneaten cecotrophs

I assume you have done a trial of no fresh veg/herbs, just hay and dried forage ? I think it unlikely that all Rabbits would be adversely effected by fresh veg/herbs it may still be worth a try

What brand pellets are you feeding ? Excel can cause excess cecotrophs .

InspectorMorse said:

Could there be a predator about at night ? Stress is one possible cause of uneaten cecotrophs

I assume you have done a trial of no fresh veg/herbs, just hay and dried forage ? I think it unlikely that all Rabbits would be adversely effected by fresh veg/herbs it may still be worth a try

What brand pellets are you feeding ? Excel can cause excess cecotrophs .

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I don't think it is likely predators - we have no foxes in our area and all of the cats who pass through our garden are scared of the buns (my cat included!)

They're having Allen & Page 'Breeder Grower' pellets. They were on Excel when Lily and Maple came to be with us in the summer, but I phased them out because I suspected that they were causing the cecos.

I haven't yet tried cutting out all fresh veg, but I might try that next and see what happens. Even if it just helps as a 'reset' button on their digestion, before gradually introducing it.

Their poops are otherwise perfect (apart from Lily's...still cannot work out why hers are egg shaped instead of round)

Beapig said:

What would you do in my shoes?

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It is an extremely challenging time of the year for feeding fresh food to bunnies. If I were you, I would attempt to feed them food from the wild or food from your garden. I presume the herbs and cabbage you've been feeding have been sourced from the supermarket/market? I suspect that the food has been produced using pesticides/herbicides/fertiliser. Might not be anything to do with this, but I wouldn't take the chance if they're having problems. The loss of grass I think will be a factor, which they will need to compensate with hay.

I would concentrate on providing hay, possibly a variety of hay, plus their regular amount of pellets. I would seek out an area locally where there are loads of Brambles and I would pick a large quantity, keeping some in the fridge for subsequent days. Some will be covered in snow perhaps, but even here where we have a lot of snow, the ones up higher are OK. There are also small signs of buds forming on Hawthorn and so I would cut a few branches to feed to them. We've also still got a few Rose leaves. The Rosemary, once thawed out, has also been popular recently.

Omi said:

It is an extremely challenging time of the year for feeding fresh food to bunnies. If I were you, I would attempt to feed them food from the wild or food from your garden. I presume the herbs and cabbage you've been feeding have been sourced from the supermarket/market? I suspect that the food has been produced using pesticides/herbicides/fertiliser. Might not be anything to do with this, but I wouldn't take the chance if they're having problems. The loss of grass I think will be a factor, which they will need to compensate with hay.

I would concentrate on providing hay, possibly a variety of hay, plus their regular amount of pellets. I would seek out an area locally where there are loads of Brambles and I would pick a large quantity, keeping some in the fridge for subsequent days. Some will be covered in snow perhaps, but even here where we have a lot of snow, the ones up higher are OK. There are also small signs of buds forming on Hawthorn and so I would cut a few branches to feed to them. We've also still got a few Rose leaves. The Rosemary, once thawed out, has also been popular recently.

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Thanks for the advice, Omi. The Parsley/Coriander/Cabbage is all package-free from our weekly farmer's market, but yes it is likely I imagine that pesticides are being used, given that 99% of farmers use them these days In the summer I give them a huge variety from the garden, and they've never had any digestion problems during the main veg growing season. Obviously all of my veg is organic and about as fresh as it comes!

We have a big, wild sort of park locally to us, so I'll go there and see what I can find. It definitely seems like the most natural option for them, so fingers crossed that will help. i'm not sure if there are any Hawthorns in the park, but I'll have a look

Omi said:

It is an extremely challenging time of the year for feeding fresh food to bunnies. If I were you, I would attempt to feed them food from the wild or food from your garden. I presume the herbs and cabbage you've been feeding have been sourced from the supermarket/market? I suspect that the food has been produced using pesticides/herbicides/fertiliser. Might not be anything to do with this, but I wouldn't take the chance if they're having problems. The loss of grass I think will be a factor, which they will need to compensate with hay.

I would concentrate on providing hay, possibly a variety of hay, plus their regular amount of pellets. I would seek out an area locally where there are loads of Brambles and I would pick a large quantity, keeping some in the fridge for subsequent days. Some will be covered in snow perhaps, but even here where we have a lot of snow, the ones up higher are OK. There are also small signs of buds forming on Hawthorn and so I would cut a few branches to feed to them. We've also still got a few Rose leaves. The Rosemary, once thawed out, has also been popular recently.

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I agree with this :wave:

OH and I braved the bitterly cold weather to get some bramble leaves from the park. I think we probably have enough for about a week here There's no room for them in our tiny fridge, but the outdoor temps are probably generally colder, so I'm going to put them in a cardboard box in the greenhouse.

20210211_132912 by Rachel Brown, on Flickr

thats a nice haul

joey&boo said:

thats a nice haul

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I know you are rather the forage queen <3 What would you say is a good quantity to feed daily? I usually give them a standard lunchbox tupperware of greens a day, not stuffed full but reasonably filled.

Beapig said:

I know you are rather the forage queen <3 What would you say is a good quantity to feed daily? I usually give them a standard lunchbox tupperware of greens a day, not stuffed full but reasonably filled.

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:lol: I'd say thats fine. Mine get a lot less in Winter - probably a tenth of the fresh stuff & that includes supermarket veg & herbs (Which are strictly off the menu come March) - it is supplemented by dried forage which I'm on the dregs of now

In my garden (if you can call it that) the rosemary, geranium & herb robert are still going after weeks of snow cover - thinking of next winter. Lemon balm only died November-ish

The pellets are high in protein as higher protein levels are needed for breeding and growing Rabbits. High protein diets when not needed cause excess cecotrophs. I’d either gradually transition to a pellet free diet, or to a pellet feed with less protein. Cold compress feeds are better than extruded pellets

https://haybox.club/products/premium-rabbit-pellets

InspectorMorse said:

The pellets are high in protein as higher protein levels are needed for breeding and growing Rabbits. High protein diets when not needed cause excess cecotrophs. I’d either gradually transition to a pellet free diet, or to a pellet feed with less protein. Cold compress feeds are better than extruded pellets

https://haybox.club/products/premium-rabbit-pellets

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Thank you for the advice, Jane. I think the reason that I bought them in the first place is because someone left a review on Amazon saying that it really helped their stasis bun. I found this to be the same for Hamilton, who used to have quite a lot of episodes. But it could be nothing to do with the pellets. I will look to transitioning them - I buy my hay from Hay Box, so that is great

joey&boo said:

:lol: I'd say thats fine. Mine get a lot less in Winter - probably a tenth of the fresh stuff & that includes supermarket veg & herbs (Which are strictly off the menu come March) - it is supplemented by dried forage which I'm on the dregs of now

In my garden (if you can call it that) the rosemary, geranium & herb robert are still going after weeks of snow cover - thinking of next winter. Lemon balm only died November-ish

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Thank you joey&boo, wonderful advice. I'm definitely going to try and grow lots more for them this Spring in my garden. I have bought some dried forage from Hop To as well, to supplement

Those haybox pellets sound really good

joey&boo said:

Those haybox pellets sound really good

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Yes I think I will definitely get those. I think part of the reason I went to the Breeder Grower ones was also to try and put some weight on Plumpkin, at the time. You can only get them in a massive sack, so all of the buns had them.

Plumpkin, such a special lady

I think those pellet ingredients are really similar to Rosewood hay cookies:lol:. I will compare the 2 sometime

joey&boo said:

Those haybox pellets sound really good

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You might find them to be a bit dry, but you can always wash then down with gin

Storing bramble: we get whole branches of it and store it outside in buckets of water :thumb: Currently in icebuckets :lol: With the bunnies inside for a week it's the only outdoor stuff we have. When it's cold enough to freeze the water more than 1" we usually bring it inside and store it in the bath but with the bunnies in the bathroom it's the other way round, sort of :lol: With outdoor bunnies, you can fed the whole bramble, especially if you can keep it out of their sleeping area!

The cold probably does slow them down, Chibbs certainly felt that! I've had a few cecotropes while they've been indoors but it's only night 3 coming up and I think we'll be reducing their (Excel) pellets even further as Chibbs didn't finish hers last night. I don't want to drop them down to summer levels but reducing it to half a scoop each (from 1.5 scoops each in the really cold bits before Chibbs got ill) might encourage more hay eating as they were less enthusiastic until I changed it this afternoon!

Forage feeding in winter is hard, but bramble is really good. The sticks are great enrichment

Your Bramble leaves look very reasonable, Beapig

Too much pellets? Is it possible that one of the bun eats way more then other? 1 table spoon of pellets for 2.2 lbs bun is enough. To rh pellets? Sometimes medicine messes up the cecco consuption.