Hello Bun lovers!

I am happy to find a helpful place like this. I have a new issue with our new buddie. His name is Mocha. We adopted him from a Pet Store to be a companion to our Freckles. Mocha has a dirty bun-bum problem now and I am not sure what triggered it or what to do about it even…. Some history:

Freckles is our first bunny. She is 4 years old and has been spayed for about 2 years now. She’s ahppily adjusted and I think bonded to the cats? HAHAHA Terrified of anything not carpeted and won’t navigate the stairs if her life depended on it. She lives in a luxury 3 story condo with all the hay, green and pellets a bunny could want. She’s incredibly sweet for petting, but too busy to stop and does not like to be held. No biggie… we just let her come to us for her love.

Mocha is a 6 year old bunny. We adopted him from a pet store. We fell in love with him for a few reasons: 1. My husband is a sucker. HAHA 2. He was (and still is) so laid back! 3. He’s older and had been waiting for a home for about a month. We had him checked over by a vet who found a small lump on his right shoulder. Unsure about it, we opted to have it removed. It was just a skin growth. In the process of this surgery we also opted to have him fixed. Not something I think I would have done unless he’d had that growth in question. He seems awfully old for a neutering. ANYWAY, he had good litter habits before. Now he does not. Can’t decide what had triggered it… could it be the neutering? Something worse? All the hair around his tail is filthy and matted. I gave him a shallow bath today, tried to brush him out, blow dried him and trimmed some of the harder mats out. He was AWESOME! I had two small struggles from him. The rest of the time he just laid in my lap and let me mess with him. I was really shocked.

We did start introductions about 2 weeks ago. We started outside. Mocha proved to be the dominent bunny and Freckles easily submitted. Now though (we moved inside) she’s been getting squirted alot because if Mocha does not give her the bunny kisses she wants, she gets a little… antsy? She’s started in on him and he just runs like crazy. Then it seemed like a breakthrough happened (and during this time I began to notice the wetness above Mocha’s tail) and neither of them really fought. They’d eat together okay even. I moved their cages next to each other and they’d lay on either side of there cage closest to each other. And Mocha’s whole backside is now sopping wet and smells awful.

I intend to try some of that cornstarch baby powder for a dry bath but I am very concerned. Is this something more then just a sudden change in litter habits??? It’s not a pleasant job to clean him up and even more difficult to dry him. I didn’t know what else to do at the time though. He needed something.

Thanks for taking the time to read all this and listen to my woes here. I hope someone might have a bit of helpful advice. I am concerned. We’ve only had Mocha about 2 months now. The first month was just him coming to our home, having surgery and recovering. He seems to be handling most everything that happens around him with little to absolutely no agitation. He even goes on vinyl and has tried out the stairs! He loves having bunny kisses and petting more then Freckles even too. Such a sweet guy to be in such a mess…..