What a cute picture. One thing I would suggest if you haven’t done this yet is to have your vet give Connor a sanitary shave if he has poopy butt problems. Basically the vet shaves the area around his anus to help keep it clean. Those very well could be pee stains or stains from his being dirty. I think having the vet shave him might be a good idea.

Medina, has he been into a vet for this? Yes a dry bath using corn starch can be used, you can find it in the baby section look for 100% corn starch OR you can use just plain old corn starch that you find in the baking section at a store. You are right and I would avoid any more trauma to your guy with a water bath. Let us know how the corn starch goes and I am not a big fan of having it shaved as that can be very traumatizing and unecessary as well. The stains may be urine scald. Does the litterbox have a low side to it? Is the litter covered with hay to keep him out of contact with the urine? You may also want to spread some towels around to be sure he can stay dry too. Is his poo runny at all or gloppy? A diet adjustment may be the way to go to help Connor out a bit. Poor guy with a back injury. : (

I really feel for the little guy. As Scarlet Rose mentioned, dietary changes may really help the poopy butt. Often it’s too much carbohydrates in treats or pellets that lead to the problem, but it also could be the stress with all the changes he’s faced so recently.

I would talk to the vet about it too, since they may suggest a regiment for helping keep him clean. if his back injury is preventing him from being able to clean himself properly, you likely will need to clean him daily, as to avoid this kind of build up. My guess is that if the buildup is severe enough not to come off with a soak in water it may be that your vet will recommend trimming some of the fur off.

The marks sound like urine scald – so really try to limit his contact with his urine, he can’t be sitting in it at all. it will help to change his box daily and you might want to put faux sheepskin on top of the litter to wick away the moisture so he’s not sitting in the pee.

I know exactly what you are going through. Bailey has always suffered from stuck poop on her butt. Because of her crooked spine and e.cuniculi, she can’t fully get down there. So everyday she gets a butt bath. I usually can get it off with a gentle stream of warm water and my hands (in rubber gloves). There is a chlorhexiderm shampoo that I got from the vets that helps loosen the harder stuff and it does clean well, but you have to be sure to use just a little amount because it goes a long way and suds up very easily. I don’t want to use that everyday because I am afraid it would irritate her skin, so I usually just use water and try to catch it as early as possible (when its soft)

Here’s a picture of the shampoo http://www.1800petmeds.com/pdetail.asp?SK=2847 I can’t vouch for that online company though.

Medina, I would stop using the pine shavings as soon as possible. They actually are not good for a bunny, rat, hampsters or anything, as they emit phenols that can cause liver damage, not to mention the dust that is breathed in by your bun and can also cause problems. A good option is a recycled newspaper litter or wood pellets. BB has given you some great tips on the washing. I would avoid the baby oil as that can clog pores and maybe even attribute to other problems.

Thanks Scarlet for catching the pine shaving mention. Scarlet is absolutely right on. Get rid of the pine shaving. If you like the scent of pine, you can use the dried pine pellets (like Feline Pine, and wood stove pellets) The dangerous phenols are dried out during processing.

You can throw the pelleted pine in the compost heap too. Or you can also use Aspen Shavings too, those are safe and compostable. I think the pelleted pine though is more odor resistant – once it gets wet from pee it breaks down into a sawdust.

Yeah, pet stores only sell it cause it sells not because it’s good for animals.

You’re welcome BB! Wood shavings I am not really fond of because of the dust and the tiny particles can lodge in the tear ducts and in the eyes of bunnies. Like Sarita said, pet stores only sell items for profit, not necessarily because they know or really care about the animal itself, others it is just out of ignorance. Most of the items that you find in the aisle “for bunnies” is not good for them such as the nut and grain treats, yogurt drops and any one of the “treats” they have or the food pellets that have all the “goodies” in them like the infamous “fiesta” mix.

All of the bunny-safe litters are compostable like Yesterday’s News, Aspen Supreme, Feline Pine, CareFresh, Fibre Cycle, Back2Nature etc. Try not just the small animal bedding section but the cat section as well for some of these products. Check their web sites online to ensure compostability and to also see what stores carry it so you don’t have to waste gas and time searching for it.

Has Connor had any basil lately?  My guys get a bit "skunky" when they eat basil.

He might be very sensitive to sweets (the banana treat) which is making him have squishy poops. Many rabbits absolutely cannot tolerate any amount of sweets (sugar). You may want to consider something else as a treat like fresh or dried herbs. Fresh mint (in small quantities) is a nice treat as it has a sweeter taste to it – when I give this to my rabbits almost all of them will eat and not turn their nose up at it.

Also be careful of carrots as they are high in sugar – if you feed him carrots consider eliminating them as well.

I agree with trying different types of grass hays to see what hay he prefers – rabbits can be very particular about this too and really there are lots of grass hays to chose from out there so you need not limit it to timothy hay although it is the easiest to come by for the most part. You might also consider a 2nd cutting grass hay – it’s softer and usually greener although it doesn’t have the higher fiber like the first cut. My rabbits prefer the 2nd cut too. I just recently got some hay from Farmer Dave’s – it was called 2nd cutting enhanced which also had some red clover flowers and my rabbits really liked this – I also just got his 2nd cut timmy hay and it smells fabulous and is green and soft. It’s worth it to experiment with different grass hays from different distributors.

Medina, if your guy is not eating hay, that could be a big part of the problem-he is not getting enough fiber in his diet.

hay is the most single important thing in a bunny’s diet and the more they eat of it, generally the better.

hay is not all the same – my kids eat a lot more since i started ordering it online from kleenmama.com instead of buying it at the pet store. 2nd cut timothy is good stuff, 3rd cut is amazing – but rare to find.  Binky sells great hay too, but with three bunnies I need bigger quantities!

Hareiette just hopped on the couch to say all this hay talk made her hungry!

Medinaserpa – Bailey loves the Oat hay, and though it can be higher in calories, for her it has only done her good. Because she eats so much of it, the amount of poopy butt is less!

Hello! I think everyone has added all the advice that I could think of, just wanted to say you’re doing a GREAT JOB BUNNY MOM!! I am quite impressed by all the work you are doing following up with the vet, and making sure the Poopy Butt is cleaned up, and making sure that his diet is good I know sometimes it can be overwhelming when a bunny doesn’t seem to be feeling quite right, but I’m sure he will be improving soon.

As far as the stinky poops – my bunny Raymond I call the “Stinky Poop King” because if he smells another boy bun anywhere around his cage it is SITNKY POOP TIME! And they are gross – ew so it might just simply be he is trying to be territorial. He’s probably so excited to have such a fantastic home he wants to claim it all ASAP. If they are pelleted poops, but kind of have a shine to them and seem to be a tad wet on the outside (I am actually eating lunch as I write this and losing my own appetite, haha) they are most likely territorial poops. If they look like clusters of small balls then it could be a cecotrope, those STINK as well for the most part. ALso, sometimes bunnies have stinky poops if their scent glands aren’t clean (see the grooming section on this site) though I wouldn’t recommend cleaning those until he’s feeling a bit more settled, my boys at least don’t appreciate me pokin around down there…

http://homepage.mac.com/mattocks/morfz/parasites.html

http://homepage.mac.com/mattocks/morfz/rabrefs.html#parasites

Here is a good article on parasites in rabbits. I’ve had rabbits with coccidia, pinworm, giardia – some can be easy to cure and some can be more difficult.

Thanks Sarita, that was great information to share!

Medinaserpa, my rabbit Mango, pictured in my avatar was diagnosed with Giardia by my vet – I have no idea how he got it – at least that is what my vet saw when she did several fecals on him – we tried 3 different treatments – flagyl (metronidazole), panacur, and albendozale. After all 3 treatments we finally sent out a fecal test to a lab and it came back negative. However he continues to have poopy issues so like you I’m trying to control it with diet – he has also had gi stasis a number of times in the past – probably the last time was about a year ago. What so far is working for me (and I’m still working on his issues) is no sugar (craisins, raisin, etc.), no pellets. Only hay and fresh greens. Mango is also overweight so I am working on getting weight off of him as well. I understand that this particular parasite is difficult to treat in rabbits because they keep of reingesting their cecals and that makes sense to me. Mango’s poops were really weird and gummy at one time, runny at another and he still seems to be very sensitive. Let me know if you find what works for Connor but that’s some things that have helped me with Mango. I emailed a whole bunch of rabbit lists about this with Mango when he was first diagnosed and got very little help because it didn’t seem particularly common – it was very frustrating for me. Still is since you are the only other person I know who has had a rabbit diagnosed with this parasite.