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Forum DIET & CARE What!?! Poopybutt

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    • Michelle&Lolli
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        Lolli only gets lettuce, hay, and pellets.  And treats.  She’s seriously overweight due to me feeding too many treats and some hay cubes that said they were timothy hay but also had alfalfa hay in them.  (Always read the ingredients. lol)   Over the past 2 days, she’s gotten maybe 5 halves of grapes.   And no other fruit.  This morning I wake up to find that she has poopybutt again.

        What the heck!?!   The treats that she gets are the oxbow timothy treats and the veggie treats.  She’s gotten these for quite a while and she hasn’t had any problems with them.  Her lettuce, hay, and pellets are all the same.  So that leaves the grapes.  Could a few grapes actually do this? 

        I don’t know what else is going on unless it’s not really poopybutt and it’s just her being freaking LAZY.  Basically just pooping where she lays.  She does this all the time.  Whenever I move her box and blanket to clean, all this poop is under there where she lays.  Could it be that her poop just came out a bit softer for some reason and then got stuck to her?  Some of it was her cecals. 

        AHHHHH!!!!   I thought I finally had her poopybutt cleared up since I quit feeding her the fruit treats.  I guess no more grapes either.  Sigh. 


      • Sarita
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          If she’s overweight she may be having problems cleaning herself. It sounds like a problem of ability rather than laziness.

          I would encourage you to get her active to lose some of the weight.


        • Otti
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            Honestly 2.5 grapes in two days sounds like a lot to me when you’re already giving her other treats.

            Sammy gets half or a quarter of a thin freeze-dried slice of banana a day and sometimes (but not every day) one of those timothy/barley/veggie oxbow cookie treats.

            How many of the timothy treats are you giving her?

            Like Sarita said it could also be an agility issue.


          • Michelle&Lolli
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              I know I was giving too many treats. I would basically give in whenever she thought she needed a treat. I’m that way with myself – no will power when I want something. So maybe it was that and the grapes was just the final straw for her system.

              How do I make her more active if she’s lazy? She has never been active. She only was when Eddie was alive because he had to make the rounds of the apartment and check on me and she’d follow after a minute or so. Should I just make her get up and hop off more? lol Sometimes I’ll just pat her on her rump under the blanket to get to come out and see me. So should I do that type of thing – kind of chase her around the living room? lol She doesn’t play. I’ve tried teasing her with paper and she just gets pissed off and growl and then hops off. I’ve rolled balls at her too. She just looks at me.


            • Sarita
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                Have you tried the clicker training? I bet that would make her more active.


              • Michelle&Lolli
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                  No, I haven’t tried that. How is that done?

                  I’ll also have to wait until I get some money too. Sigh.


                • Sarita
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                    I have never done it but many of BB’ers have and hopefully they will post. At least if you continue to give her treats, she will have to physically and mentally work for them and this may help trim her down.


                  • RabbitPam
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                      You can look up clicker training and go to the website. Also, BB sells a beginners book that is very good.

                      I would cut back the alfalfa products, too. It’s just more fat content that is not needed after a very young age, and a nice timothy or other flavor of hay (my Sammy loves Oat, but Orchard is good for those with a taste for soft and sweeter) to help start the weight loss. You can get her to exercise by hiding a treat she can smell in another room, such as waving it in front of her nose, then let her see where you walk to so she can find it by running after you. Or hide it in a diggy box she has to dig to get out. Or put it up on a platform so she much climb a ramp up and down again.

                      I like the healthier treats, like Veggie smacks, which are actually ground up hay and vegetable products rather than pure sweet fruits as snacks so they aren’t quite as fattening as well. Also, try a papaya tablet as a treat, so you give her something that’s good for her digestion while treating her. I limit my treats to basically one in the AM and one in the PM as a way to get her to agree to go back in her cage for the time being.


                    • Michelle&Lolli
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                        She’s not getting the alfalfa hay cubes any more. I bought some oxbow ones which are just timothy based. And she gets either a oxbow veggie treat or the timothy O’s.

                        She’s gonna be so mad at me. She has already come up to me many times today, wanting a treat. All I did was tell her she’s on a diet and then attempt to give nose pets. lol Oh well. She was mad at me yesterday cause I was gone a long time and she ran out of pellets. OOOOO she’s gonna starve to death without pellets. LOL Nevermind that she has plenty of hay.

                        I will trying hiding her treats or making them more difficult to get to. I just won’t be giving her a lot. I have the papaya treats, but she snubs them.


                      • Monkeybun
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                          How much pellets do you give her now?


                        • Michelle&Lolli
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                            1/4 of a cup which I will be slowly decreasing. She just gets grumpy when her bowl’s empty. So as long as a few pellets are in it, she’s content. Kind of how cats are, I guess. lol

                            I’ve been feeding her the kaytee brand timothy pellets. I actually read the label on that. lol No alfalfa. I started buying these because the only locally owned petstore that carried Oxbow products was closed and at the time Petsmart didn’t carry Oxbow. So now that it does, I’ll be buying their timothy pellets. Still gonna be reducing the amount. But maybe a better quality will help her lose weight. Or at least it would be better in general. lol

                            I don’t measure her lettuce. As long as she eats it (minus the spinach), I’m happy. And I figure if she has a lot of lettuce, she won’t eat as many pellets.


                          • Michelle&Lolli
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                              I just created a hay box for her out of an empty kleenex box. I hid a couple of treats in it. So far she’s curious. Keeps sniffing the box and she ate some hay out of it. I have to keep it in her litterbox cause the dingbat will potty when she eats hay. But maybe that will keep her entertained. I think I need to figure out some mental stimulation for her as well. She’s smart but she won’t play. So maybe clicker training would be best for her. I’ll look into it.


                            • Isabelle
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                                This probably doesn’t have any relevance, but my mom and I get the runs from any fruit that isn’t from the USA. We think it’s the water from the other country that causes it. That probably has nothing to do with what Lolli has, but just thought I’d mention it since you talked about it happening after giving grapes x.x

                                Dutchess has maintained her weight within a few ounces since she’s gotten full grown. I give her treats when she asks for them, but I generally limit the treats to very small amounts, like four or five raisins, rather than giving her a whole handful. It satisfies her craving. She’s also a pretty lazy bun for a good amount of the time, but sometimes she’ll really get into a play mood, and I chase her around and she does the bunny 500. I noticed that if I move her toys around or introduce something new like a chair with a blanket on it, she has to check it all out then scamper around the room to see if I changed anything else. Maybe you could try that.


                              • jerseygirl
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                                  Grapes are very high in sugar from memory. If that was the only thing different in her diet then you can be pretty certain they were the culprit.
                                  You could perhaps keep some of her pellet ration aside and give them as a treat. Or break the veggie treat cookies into smaller pieces and give a bit at a time. They have lots of taste buds so it the taste more then the quantity that makes it a treat in my opinion.
                                  You have the be careful with giving something everytime they “beg”. I know! lol We’re training them to do it really. When I had Jersey on her own I used to limit it to 2 things when she asked. She knew there was little point in “asking” after 2. It was a routine of sorts.
                                  If you can find a local source of willow or apple leaves and twigs, that’s a cheap and healthy treat. Rose petals and leaves also.

                                  I agree, I don’t think Lolli is lazy at all. It’s her natural instinct to want to stay clean. If you noticed some weight loss before with diet modification, it’s definately the place to start. It might not show on the scales but their body shape and mobility changes. I believe they become more active also once some weight comes off so it’s a win-win.


                                • Michelle&Lolli
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                                    I think she’s going to end up being grumpy with me. lol I gave her maybe 2 treats yesterday and only 3 today. Down from 5 or maybe more a day. I obviously never kept track. lol I have also realized that if her bowl is empty, then she begs for treats more. Cause I never let her bowl get empty so she thinks she’s gonna starve to death. So she gets her 1/4 cup of pellets whenever I decide to get up (usually around noon) and that’s all she gets for 24 hours. So by the time I get up, she’s coming out to beg for treats cause “she’s gonna die!”. Once I give her more pellets, she’s fine and goes back under her box. And really, today, *I* decided to give her treats rather than her begging. Just cause it needs to be said, she’s FINE cause she has lots of hay. I just made her a hay box with a ton of hay in it. lol

                                    And no more grapes! Neither one of us wants her to have poopy butt again. LOL It just took me by surprise cause I’ve given her some apple without her having any problems.

                                    I have a very hard time saying no to myself so it’s very easy for that little face to sway me into overfeeding. But I have a wedding in June I need to lose weight for. So I can fit into dresses I already have. lol So both of us are on a diet. Well, she is. I just need to eat healthier and start exercising.


                                  • Boss
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                                      1) Rabbits are supposed to have 3 different kinds of vegetables a day for a mix of nutrients.
                                      2) I hope you are not feeding Iceberg lettuce. It has few nutrients.


                                    • LoveChaCha
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                                        Posted By Boss on 04/07/2011 11:50 PM
                                        1) Rabbits are supposed to have 3 different kinds of vegetables a day for a mix of nutrients.
                                        2) I hope you are not feeding Iceberg lettuce. It has few nutrients.

                                         

                                        I honestly believe Lolli is not getting iceberg lettuce. She is doing great with her weight loss IMO


                                      • BinkyBunny
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                                          Sounds like you have planned on making some positive changes by taking out certain things out of her diet…how are thing going now? Sometimes it can take a week or so for their system to adjust.


                                        • Michelle&Lolli
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                                            She doesn’t have any poopy butt anymore since I’ve cut out the fruit treats. Then I switched her to Oxbow pellets and she refuses to eat them, so she’s lost about a pound. LOL She gets the same amount of food but she’s just being stubborn on her pellets.

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                                        Forum DIET & CARE What!?! Poopybutt