I have a buck that is approx 6 months old. Every morning when I go out to care for the rabbits his cage is covered with mushy, smelly poop. I\'m talking huge volumes, esp on his resting board. I figure he is making an over abundence of the poops they re-ingest at night as this is the only time he poops like this. During the day he has normal round poops. Nothing has changed in his diet and he\'s as active as ever, has a bright shiny coat and eyes.
Is there anything I can do that will cause him to go less or to somewhat fix this problem. Is this a hereditary condition?
Our of my 12 rabbits, he\'s the only one with this problem and I\'d really like to, at the very least, cut down on this problem.
The tendency to develop this does seem to be hereditary. I have had a couple of rabbits (one also a Mini Rex) who did the same thing. Have you had a weather change (significant drop in temperature)?
What seems to help is to take away any high protein supplements you may be giving, remove the pellets for a day or two and substitute grass hay. When you go back to the pellets try to back off on the protein by adding old fashioned oatmeal. If your pellets are 18%, make a 50/50 mixture. If you are feeding 16% pellets make the mix 2:1 pellets to oatmeal.
It seems that certain condition cause some rabbits to produce excess amounts of cecotropes. Much more than they will consume. I would have only the one with the problem, though she seemed healthy otherwise. I found though, that if I tried going back to the regular diet, the problem would reoccur. I would also recommend adding some probiotics to the feed as well.
Good luck.
Charlcie Gill
Zodiac Rabbitry
Astoria, OR
http://www.zodiacsatins.com
We\'ve been pretty warm actually with only a few nights this winter going below freezing.
I will start the grass hay tomorrow and then the oats like you suggested. I\'ll let you know if it works or helps. Thanks for the advice.
Good luck.
Charlcie
Wow, I think this was a stress related problem more then anything.
I had this little buck in a cage off by himself, it was a much larger cage then what he was used to. He was still close to the other rabbits but not in a cage that is connected to any other cages. So since I have the Mom and litter of 5 Jersey Woolies I decided to switch him out of the large cage and put the JW family in the larger cage and him in the smaller cage next to one of my pregnant does.
As well as doing that I started the grass hay and today gave him a handful of the rolled oats. Since putting him in the different cage there has been no mushy messy poop at all. Just normal round ones and not an over abundence either.
He seems so much happier where he is now, I\'m still going to keep him on the feeding schedule you suggested Charlcie and in the next few days when I put him back on his regular feed I\'ll know if it\'s just to much protein or if it was stress induced. I\'m leaning towards stress as he seems so relaxed now and you can just tell he is happy.
I\'ll let you know.
Glad to hear that. Stress does act as a catalyst for disturbances like that. (That\'s why I had asked if there had been a sudden weather change - a stressor.) Keep us posted.
Charlcie Gill
Zodiac Rabbitry
Astoria, OR
http://www.zodiacsatins.com
I\'m glad to hear that you buck is not having the messy smelly poop anymore. One of my bucks does this every now and then and it gets very irritating. I thought it had something to do with marking his territory because when I would put him on the top of a cage with a wooden roof that had another buck in it he would normally have the messy smelly poop. I might try what Charlcie suggested.
Hi, I thought I would reply to this post as well, because I seem to be having the same problem. One of my rabbits keeps leaving cecal poops all over the place. I am sure that is what they are because they are dark colored, mushy and wet, clustered like grapes, and smell really bad. I\'m assuming this is just an overabundance of cecal poops? Is there a chance that one of my rabbits is just not ingesting her cecal poop, or is it probably just an overabundance?
Actually I did modify their diet a little before and that really seemed to help, but it was difficult because I have two rabbits in the same cage, one has the problem and the other doesn\'t, so I was hoping to give them both a diet that was high in nutrients, etc. When I stopped giving them pellets for a couple days and just fed them alfalfa hay (they are still young), the problem went away, but I also noticed that their poop looked like little pine cones! Because it was just all hay they were passing.
Anyway, just wanted to add my 2 cents =p Thanks for giving so much advice!
Just this morning when I went out to do the morning rounds his cage was a filthy mess again. I thought this was all over with but guess not.
So he\'s back on the grass hay and oats again.
My rabbit is 9 yrs old and when he gets stressed or doesn\'t get enough fiber, then he has the exact same problem. Most of the time it is due to lack of fiber. The vet told me to give the rabbit dried oats, like quaker oatmeal oats. I always have a can on hand and it fixes the problem everytime. Plus the rabbit loves them