Got up today and found Marlee and Moshi both have poopy butt (Kieko is fine)! Five or six piles of cecotrophs and mushy blobs around their area. Litterboxes are full of normal poops, but Moshi had a blob+cecotrophs still coming out when we picked him up to check his butt. We assumed it was just Moshi at first, but Marlee had poopy butt (way less than Mosh). Got both cleaned up, and emptied all litterboxes in the M&Ms area, cleaned up all mushy poops and stray normal poops. Rabbit vet is closed for the weekend. We do have a 24 hour emergency vet — they do see rabbits but have no exotic specialist. Need advice please!
A little info/history:
Marlee and Moshi live together, Kieko lives in a separate room.
All three have unlimited hay (mix of 2nd timothy and orchard grass) and water. Marlee and Moshi always eat significantly more hay than Kieko, and Moshi eats tons!
Marlee and Moshi each get 1/16 cup of pellets in the AM and PM, Kieko gets a little over 1/16th cup in the evening.
Marlee and Moshi each get a salad in the evening (Moshi’s is smaller), and Kieko gets a salad (larger than the M&M’s salad) in the AM and PM (vet’s orders) since her bout with GI stasis. Salads consist of romaine (only a little for Mosh), green leaf lettuce, red leaf lettuce, a bite of Kale, and a leaf of fresh basil each.
Moshi is known to have a sensitive tummy (too much romaine and he’ll leave a few cecotrophs the next day but no poopy butt). Nothing seems to upset Marlee or Kieko’s tummies.
The M&Ms have been drinking tons of water over the past two or three weeks (it has gotten warmer here but thermostat is always at 68 degrees). They’ve always been bigger water drinkers than Kieko, but have been emptying a 24 ounce bottle and at least 1/2 of another 24 ounce bottle daily (we think Marlee is drinking more than Moshi). Before we moved them in together (a month ago?), they each drank about half a 24 ounce bottle each day.
Last week, 2 times, we found a single blob of mushy poop in M&M’s area. No poopy butts. Assumed Moshi had too much romaine (having trouble finding enough decent green leaf since Easter weekend). No blobs since then until this morning (Saturday).
Every Saturday I make up three boxes of “go to” hay for the week. The hay they’ve had this week was from a new shipment of hay (from the same place I always get hay from). The orchard grass hay was somewhat dusty (mainly top and sides in box), but seemed to smell OK so I blew it off and mixed it in (posted about this). All three have been eating from this hay since last Saturday. No runny noses/eyes or sneezing.
All three have had a few small pieces of dehydrated carrot over the past two days, and they all had some oat hay last Sunday. The carrots arrived along with the oat hay, separate from the 2nd timothy and orchard grass order, all from the same place I order all hay from.