Rabbit eating his own poos

I know bits and pieces on this, but not the whole story. I believe there is some sort of bacteria that releases itself into the poo the first time, and the rabbit needs that substance for some reasons, which is why he eats his own poos after it came out the first time. But I don't know the details.

But if that is so, does the rabbit eats it the 2nd time? And how would he know that he already ate the poos the 1st time, and thus, he doesn't need to eat the poos the 2nd time?

The poos look different.

The ones that they eat again are called caecal pellets or night pellets. They look like small dark grapes in a bunch, they are very sticky and stink because they have a bacterial/mucus layer over them! Usually they are eaten directly from the anus so if you see you rabbit appearing to lick himself down below in the morning or evening he may actually be eating his ceacals.

If you haven't seen any lying around then your bunny is on the right diet. When you start to see uneaten ceacals lying around then they are getting too much protein (i.e. too many pellets).

The normal poos are the lighter coloured dry rabbit currents they scatter all over the place. These are not eaten because they have no nutrients left in them.

Caz

hi

As Caz says, you never normally see the poops which the bunny eats - I've never seen any, although I did see Benny once dip down to his nether regions and then munch contentedly for a few mins :shock:

When a rabbit has a 'sticky bum' problem, these are usually caecal pellets (the edible ones) stuck to its fur for some reason - either making more than it can eat due to overfeeding or wrong diet, or from being too overweight to reach down there easily...

According to my notes off the Internet, bunnies produce the round, waste poops for about 4 hours after they have eaten a 'meal' then they do the edible, cecal poops for about the next 4 hours - so they don't just eat them at night - it depends when you feed them.

One of my buns rarely takes the caecal pellets straight from his bottom, he does a small pile and then eats them, he's not over weight and he's fit and healthy - is it just that he prefers doing this?

It does also seem that if you disturb him he leaves them to run to you, and doesn't go back and eat them afterwards, and then they stuck to his feet! :roll:

I thought for ages that I was find them cos I was feeding him too many pellets but they eat about a third of the recommended amount of pellets anyhow cos he has to have a low calcium diet. Could it be anything else?

Also, I've been wondering about something Fern used to do - when she was poorly towards the end of her life she used to eat her hard poos a lot - is that common in a poorly bunny and what would the reason be?

BevBunny said:

I thought for ages that I was find them cos I was feeding him too many pellets but they eat about a third of the recommended amount of pellets anyhow cos he has to have a low calcium diet. Could it be anything else?

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Yeah, China and Rocket leave lots of these around but only eat around 60g pellets between them in a day (and a bit of that they leave), and their diet consists mainly of meadow hay/dried grass. So, repeating the above question - could this be because of something other than too many pellets?

AMETHYST

Caz said:

If you haven't seen any lying around then your bunny is on the right diet. When you start to see uneaten ceacals lying around then they are getting too much protein (i.e. too many pellets)

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Thank you. Then he is on the right track all along then.

BevBunny said:

Also, I've been wondering about something Fern used to do - when she was poorly towards the end of her life she used to eat her hard poos a lot - is that common in a poorly bunny and what would the reason be?

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Someone else please answered that question, as I did notice my rabbit did it once. I am almost 100% certain of it. I'm guessing it is hard because there is that "crunchy" sound his teeth make while he's eating it.

Caz said:

The poos look different.

The ones that they eat again are called caecal pellets or night pellets. They look like small dark grapes in a bunch, they are very sticky and stink because they have a bacterial/mucus layer over them! Usually they are eaten directly from the anus so if you see you rabbit appearing to lick himself down below in the morning or evening he may actually be eating his ceacals.

Click to expand...

I like to revisit this subject: What is the purpose of caecal pellets?

What will happen to a rabbit if he generates it and didn't eat it? What harm would it cause a rabbit not eating the caecal pellets?

http://www.bio.miami.edu/hare/poop.html

http://www.peteducation.com/article.cfm?cls=18&cat=1803&articleid=2932

Caz