Hello

In another topic where I was asking questions about my intact female bunny I mentioned that she drinks about 300-350ml/day and I was told that this might be a sign that she has kidney problems. But because she has a small water bottle 250ml I change it daily to make sure she does not run out and the numbers I gave where a bit high. Still for the past 4 days I have taken note of how much she drinks and it still is a bit over the top.

Pika is a 7 month old Holland Lop 1.7kg (3.7 pounds). She receives about 40g (1.4 Oz) of Oxbow Bunny Basics “T”, quite a bit of fresh greens, occasional bit of carrot or banana as a treat and she is constantly eating hay (loads).

This is how much she drank in the past 4 days:

-260ml

-285ml

-230ml

– Today its looking like 230-250ml.

This increased drinking started with her puberty and her crazy marking so I thought it was normal, since she constantly sprays. What I noticed today has me a bit worried. When she went to her toilet (my bed at night ) she peed on the shower curtain and as I cleaned it (wasn’t much of it) I noticed that it had higher viscosity as normal, looking more like saliva but not sludge – might just be an anomaly. She is a very active bunny – happy and binky if she manages to save enough energy after showing my male bunny who is boss here .

I did some reading on bladder stones;

http://www.rabbit.org/journal/3-5/bladder-disease.html

And there are some signs that would apply to her; loss of litter habits, hopping in and out of the litter pan,  wetness around the genital area. But as far as I know everything can be the cause of her bunny “puberty” and she mostly keeps dry now as I have turned a large part of her cage into a litter box. She is due to be spayed in 2 weeks but I will mention this to my vet.

Does this higher water consumption point to a problem even if she does constantly eat hay and marks ?

PS: Bonus pic