Weird Bunny Poops?

[LittleBunnyPaws]

I recently got a baby Holland Lop, and before now, his poops were completely normal for bunnies. Today, when I went to check on him, his cage smelt very bad. I checked in his Hidey House, and there were small clumps of poos. The poop was kind of moist, and were all seperate balls, but just clumped together. Does anybody know what this is called? He has never done it before. Is this bad? What does it mean?

[litheandgraphic]

Did it look like this? If so, those are cecotropes, aka cecal pellets. They are completely normal, and are usually ingested by the rabbit straight from their rear so as to process the vitamins and nutrients within (lovely, isn’t it?). You shouldn’t be seeing a lot of them, however. One or two on occasion is okay, but if you start seeing a lot you may want to take your bun to the vet. He needs to eat his cecals!

You may also want to check this thread for reference, if they are cecals you’re seeing. His diet may just need a bit of a change. 

Also, if the cage is smelling really really bad, this may be a case of cecal disbyosis, which is most commonly caused by a diet too rich in carbs, fat, and/or sugar. What’s his diet at the moment?

Also, for your reference, here is a complete guide to bunny feces. 

[LittleBunnyPaws]

Right now, he is eating a mix of Blue Seal pellets and Small World Rabbit pellets. For hay, he is eating Forti-Diet Timothy Hay and Alfalfa Hay. Is he diet not right? They do look like that, so I guess they are cecotropes. He has pooed a few clumps today. He hasn’t been eating them? I tried to leave them in there, but he will not eat them whatsoever. What should I do?

[litheandgraphic]

Do the cecals look tightly packed and neatly formed, or are they sort of a formless glob? If they’re formless and smell really bad, it might be cecal dysbiosis brought on by not enough fiber and too much carbohydrates in the diet.

 If they’re normal cecals that are neatly formed, then it sounds like he’s producing too many / not eating them because the diet is so rich. This can happen if there’s a little too much alfalfa in the diet.

I’m not familiar with the Forti-Diet hay — it’s Kaytee, right? I can’t seem to find the Forti-Diet hay, but I am finding the Forti-Diet pellets, which are also alfalfa-based. 

A few things to know first (sorry for so many questions – this is like detective work!):

How old approximately is the bunny? Younger or older than 7 months? 
How much pellets is he getting per day? 
Is he getting any leafy greens yet? 
How many of these cecals did you find?

The most common thing that happens with this is when the bunny is getting too many pellets, specifically, too much alfalfa (and too much protein as a result). Depending on the age of the bunny and how much pellets you’re feeding now, you may want to start making a quicker switch away from alfalfa and more into Timothy, especially if the bunny is 7 months or older.

Blue Seal pellets and Small World pellets are both alfalfa-based pellets, so there may be too much alfalfa in the diet. I also don’t really trust the ingredients in the Blue Seal pellets, looking at the nutrition info. I’d consider looking into something like Oxbow, which you can order online if there’s not a store near you that carries them.

The alfalfa pellets plus the alfalfa hay may just be a tad too much protein altogether.

Also, just a kind of side-note, if you notice any very runny stool, like diarrhea, you’ll want to take him to the vet immediately.

[LittleBunnyPaws]

Ok, thank you so much. Midas is a bit older than 8 weeks old. The hay I’m feeding him is Timothy Hay, but the pellets doesn’t clarify if it is alfalfa or Timothy. The poops are usually neatly packed together, but sometimes there are a few single pieces near a large pile. He has pooed about 3 large piles of it today, but at the moment is just pooping normal pills. The pills are occasionally a tad moist, is that normal? He tends not to poop the cecotropes in the litter box, and he is still marking his territory with the normal pills around his cage. For the most part, the pills are in his litter box, and the cecotropes are everywhere, if that makes any sense. Haha, sorry, first time bunny owner here XD

[litheandgraphic]

No worries!  That’s what this forum is here for! (And hey, I’m a first-timer, too — I just happen to do a LOT of extensive research in my spare time. Like probably too much research.)

Rabbit pellets are always a little bit moist, but if you’re really noticing it, that’s usually an indicator that there’s too much protein in the diet, which is probably exactly what’s going on. If he’s eight weeks old now, he’ll be turning the corner into adulthood, which means you’ll definitely want to ween him off the alfalfa pellets/hay and start to phase in Timothy hay and pellets. 

You’ll also want to gradually cut back on pellets altogether, down to 1/2 cup per 6 lbs of body weight. My bunny is 4 lbs and I feed him 1/8th cup per day.

Also, this is about when you’ll want to begin introducing some leafy greens, if you haven’t started to already. Probably the easiest thing to start to introduce is a leaf of romaine lettuce once a day, and then gradually increase the variety and amount until you’re up to about 2-4 cups depending on the size of the bun. This will be done super slowly.

So gradually change the hay and pellet type (and I’d also suggest a brand change, too) and slowly cut back on the daily serving of pellets, and then gradually begin to introduce leafy greens, and this should be just fine. 

As far as the cecals not going in the litterbox, that’s because rabbits don’t really “think” of those as waste; they’re more of a … food.

[LittleBunnyPaws]

“They’re more of a … Food” that is so gross, haha. Do you think adding another litter box will cut down on him pooing everywhere. And I thought you started giving him veggies at 6 months?

[gingerg]

Cute name, LBP!

My 8-10 week old bunnies also went through a few times when they produced too many cetotropes and weren’t eating all of them, Sometimes I think it’s just they were getting distracted (because they are so young), other times, I think they gorged themselves on pellets and then produced too many cecals at once. At the time, I was feeding them 1/4c pellets each, twice a day (which they weren’t finishing). I reduced the pellets to 1/8c each twice a day, and the over-production of cecals stopped. I don’t know if that was because I restricted pellets or just because they were getting older, of course. For what it’s worth, I fed they alfalfa pellets, and am still doing so (5 months old now). I’ll start transitioning them to timothy pellets at 6 months, on the advice of my exotic vet.

Also, for what it’s worth, the House Rabbit Society says you can start introducing greens at 12 weeks. I started at that age, and they took to them right away. They even prefer their romaine and cilantro to pellets. http://rabbit.org/faq-diet/

[LittleBunnyPaws]

Ok, thank you so much . I didn’t know it was at 12 weeks, so thanks for telling me that. I will probably begin reducing his pellets, just because he definitely doesn’t eat to many of them. He mainly just nibbles on his hay and drinks from his water bottle. And when Midas is old enough, I will definitely start him on his veggies

[litheandgraphic]

Posted By LittleBunnyPaws on 8/25/2014 3:59 AM
Ok, thank you so much . I didn’t know it was at 12 weeks, so thanks for telling me that. I will probably begin reducing his pellets, just because he definitely doesn’t eat to many of them. He mainly just nibbles on his hay and drinks from his water bottle. And when Midas is old enough, I will definitely start him on his veggies

Excellent! C: Pellets are more of a supplement anyways. Midas is a cute name by the way!

[LittleBunnyPaws]

Thanks Theodore is a cute name too. I just got the idea because he is orange. I would post a picture, but I’m on my iPod, which doesn’t let me post pictures

[jerseygirl]

The young do seem to produce a lot of cecals. Hopefully you will start to see less left around. Especially with tweaking his diet.

The slightly wet look on his normal poop could also be “marking poop”. They’ll leave a coating on those to mark territory. It’s slightly smelly but not as potent as the cecal poop.

“They’re more of a … Food” that is so gross, haha. Do you think adding another litter box will cut down on him pooing everywhere.

How big is his litterbox?
Some ways to ensure good box use is:
-Provide a good size box
-Place the hay in the box or in a rack above it. Buns will poop where they eat their hay.
-Avoid using cage bedding. They’ll do better with a bare cage floor. Bedding is too similar to litter material and many just think of the cage as one big litter box.

Hope that helps.

@funny-looking-rabbit, I had a chuckle at the 1st link to the image. I was expecting 1 pic of cecotrophes…but it was the motherload!

(Off topic, I never have success anchoring links to words. Anyone care to give me a quick lesson? : D )

[litheandgraphic]

Posted By LittleBunnyPaws on 8/25/2014 12:39 PM

Thanks Theodore is a cute name too. I just got the idea because he is orange. I would post a picture, but I’m on my iPod, which doesn’t let me post pictures

Ah, well. Sometime soon then!  

Off topic, I never have success anchoring links to words. Anyone care to give me a quick lesson? : D

Hehehe, I found that little collection of images and found it very useful. And sure! There’s a couple ways to do it, but the easiest is to highlight the word(s) you want to make a link, and then simply click that little button at the top of the text entry box that looks like a little earth with a chain link and a plus sign next to it — it’s second from the left of the Bold, Underline, Italic buttons. If you click that, a small window will appear prompting you to enter the Link URL and the Link Text. If you’ve selected your word(s) first, you’ll see they come up in the Link Text field. So then all you need to do is copy and paste the URL into the URL field, and voila! 

The “target” drop-down also allows you to change what happens when a person clicks the link; whether it opens in a new tab or window or not, etc.

[jerseygirl]

Thanks! ^
I’ve saved instructions for when on next on a PC. (Mobile doesn’t give full editor options). Not sure what i was doing wrong in the past but highlighting the text does sound like easiest way to go.

[jerseygirl]

LittleBunnyPaws, you can upload photos on a photo hosting site. They usually give you sharing codes.
I have a photobucket account (free) that I use purely for posting images here on BinkyBunny.

You do need to be able to resize the photos though for them to show up on the forums here. You can also do that on most photo hosting sites. Photobucket only allows it using their full site which can be tricky to view on a phone or iPod screen. But it’s possible!
A little trick I often do is take a screenshot of the photo, then upload the screenshot version to the host site. The file size & resolution is automatically less then the pic that was taken with the camera.

Check out the Tech subforum if you’d like to know more about pic sharing options.

[LittleBunnyPaws]

Thanks Jerseygirl that’s super helpful. His litter box is about three times as big as him, so it’s very large. I use Woodstove pellets in it, and change it every other day. And he has two hay racks above his litter box. (Home made, and store bought.)

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