Collect bunny sample

[BunBunBear]

Hi all,

First time posting on here

I usually go to these forums to find useful things about bunbun but could not find much on this topic. 

My bunny has been getting some runny stools (especially overnight while she sleeps). I’ve taken her to the vet and the vet said that her stomach was quite firm so bunny was admitted and they performed an x-ray. The results did not show anything but the vet has requested that I provide a runny stool sample, the problem is that I never seem to catch it happening even if I stay up. She usually gets it while I’m asleep and by morning, it’s all over her fur and stuck on the carpet. She doesn’t get it in her litter tray. Any ideas on how I can collect a sample?

Also, has this happened to any of your bunnies? She has perfectly normal droppings in her litter tray and she’s been eating and playing as normal. She doesn’t get fed any treats that she shouldn’t have and gets plenty of oaten hay and water. She gets fresh veggies and i’ve checked with the vet to see if they’re ok.

Any help would be great,

Thank you!

[jerseygirl]

Welcome! : )

How old is your rabbit?

It sounds like it might be unformed cecals (cecal dysbiosis). Especially if happening overnight. The cecal droppings they re-ingest are sometimes called “night droppings”. 

When cecal dysbiosis occurs, there is often a change in the pH of the cecal contents, thus changing the balance of cecal flora. The timing of contractions in the large intestine is interrupted, resulting in food particles not being sorted and broken down as they should be. The cecum then “dumps” contents randomly instead of producing nicely formed cecotropes. This dumping usually results in relatively formless, “pudding like” cecotropes, often with foul smell. The rabbit is unable to eat them, and they may end up on the floor or pasted to the rabbit’s rear end. It is not known for sure, but there may also not be the normal “brain trigger” to tell the rabbit that the cecotropes are coming.

Dr Susan Brown exotic animal veterinarian http://rabbit.org/disorders-of-the-cecum/  

Also some good information here. Scroll down to heading “Unformed Cecotropes: Mushy or Runny Stool”.

I’m not sure how you’d get a sample. Maybe if she sleeps on something other then carpet, you could scrape some off the surface and bag it? A tile or sheet of wood. If she isn’t a chewer, you could use a plastic mat or puppy pee pad. Otherwise, use what you pull out of her fur. I don’t think it’s possible to get a truly uncontaminated sample. 

Does she eat pellets? Some bunnies cannot tolerate pellets at all and do better on a hay/greens diet. Others will be really sensitive to commercial greens or just certain ones, causing runny poop at times. 

[LBJ10]

I agree with Jersey. It sounds like cecals that are either not formed very well or there are just too many.

[BunBunBear]

Thank you so much for help!

My bunny is 1.5 years old. She doesn’t really eat pellets to be honest, she only gets an unlimited supply of oaten hay and handful of greens such as asian greens like bok choy, and parsley, basil, celery sometimes. She was given kale a while back regularly, but I stopped that and switched it to bok choy and that is the only thing that has changed. I’m wondering if that is the reason why, however I then only gave her hay for a bit and held back on the veggies but she still got poopy bum. She has been quite gassy. I found it funny when I woke up to the sound of her farting but then picked her up and saw poppy bum and a dirty carpet, suddenly realised it might be something serious so took her to the vet.

Not really sure to do. I got a small sample today but can’t get it to the vet until later in the week, so I hope the sample will still be alright.

[flemishwhite]

Rabbits have two stomachs.  One is like ours, located between the esphogas and small intestine.  Their other stomach,  actually their more important stomach, is located at the juncture of the small intestine and the large intestine. This stomach is the cecum.  In humans it’s known as the appendix, a vestigal organ for humans.  Just as cows regurgitate and chew their cud, rabbits have to do the same, they need to purge their cecum stomach everyday.  But rabbits cannot regurgitate their cecum into their mouth directly.  The Cecum contents are expelled through their large intestine and out through their rectum.  These are called cecotrops, or cecum pellets.  Unlike the hard relatively dry odorless bunny poop pellets, the cecum pellets are mushy, mucous covered and if you smash one in your fingers they have a vomit like smell.  As soon as a cecum pellet comes out of the bunney’s rectum, it will immediately bend around and eat it.  The cecum pellet is nutricious…it contains liver enzymes, vitamins, partially digested food, and also the symbiotic bacteria that transforms cellulose to glucose.  You can own a rabbit for years and never know that once, or more, each day one of these mushy things is coming out of their rectum and they are immediately eating it..  Ever see you rabbit appear to be licking or whatever it’s rear end?  Actually it’s probably eating it’s cecum pellet. 

What goes wrong?  If you have a fat rabbit, and it can’t bend around to re-ingest the cecum pellet or if your rabbit has spinal authritus (spinal stenosis) that prevents the rabbit from bending around,  the soft pellet will (1) get mushed in the fur around it’s rectum or (2) drop out on the floor or carpet. We had this problem with Bunny.  We had to clean her bum and also we would sometimes step on a cecum pellet on the floor and make a stain on the floor.  Months of unhappiness.  Solution. The Vet diagnosed spinal stenosis and gave us a Metacam prescription…an analgesic.  Happiness..with no more back pain, Bunny went back to eating her Cecum pellets.

Our two rabbits now are white Flemish rabbits.  They are 8 months old.  Their bums are completely clean with white hair.  They are obviously eating their cecum pellets daily. 

…………………..

How to check bunny’s butt.   The straightforward way is to pick up the rabbit, turn it upside down and set it in you lap between you legs and have a look at the butt.  This is highly stressing to the bunny.  They don’t like to be picked up and hate to be turned upside down.  The low stress technique is, with the rabbit laying on the floor,  gently use one hand to press it’s shoulders down to keep it from running away.  Take the other hand and slide it under the rabbits butt and feel if there’s a smooched out cecum pellet in bunn’s hair around it’s rectum or vulva.  Don’t feel squemish about this…a cecum is not poop…it’s stomach contents meant to be eaten by the rabbit. For the several months I had to do this, Bunny became very tolerant of this procedure.    

 

 

 

[BunBunBear]

That is quite interesting. I wonder if my bunny has something similar. I don’t usually see any cecals lying around during the day so I had assumed that she was eating them. She doesn’t seem overweight. I think bunny weighed in at 1.5kg the last time she went to the vet a few weeks back. I still see her bending over from time to time to eat the cecals, it’s just for some reason they’re quite runny in the morning after she has woken up. I’ll check her around 9AM and there will be nothing, but come 11AM she’ll have a brown watery blanket under her. I have to clean her bottom and mouth every morning. Nothing seems to be stuck there and her hair isn’t obstructing her bottom.

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