She might be looking for the extra fibre since she is shedding. The hard poos might contain some benefical bacteria also, like cecotrophes. Is she eating a lot of them?

Has she reduced her hay intake at all? Is she one of the 2 in your avatar picture? Its sometimes hard to tell their intake when there are 2 living together.

I’ve seen my rabbits do this sometimes. One particularly, as she doesnt eat hay. It’swhen they are eating all of them that something is definitely amiss.

Typically when an animal eats their own droppings it is because of a nutritional imbalance in their bodies. Dogs, cats, birds etc will all eat their own feces if they feel they need the nutrients back. It is actually rather fascinating how they can tell. Most humans never know when their bodies are low on X vitamin. So that may be a reason.

When mine are shedding they tend to eat more salad / hay but never noticed droppings being eaten beyond cecos in mine.

How often do they get a salad (greens and other veggies) along with the daily hay and pellets?

It happens. I guess I wouldn’t be too concerned unless they are eating a bunch of them. Like Stickerbunny suggested, perhaps she is lacking something in her diet.

Posted By Ackattack on 10/11/2012 10:41 AM

We feed them broccoli and cilantro every other day (about the size of their head) with unlimited hay and the small to moderate amount of pellets daily.

That might be your problem.  Rabbits need their veggies everyday.  Here is website for the recommended diet from the HRS (http://www.rabbit.org/faq/sections/diet.html) and here is the website for the detailed list of veggies (http://www.rabbit.org/care/veggies.html).

Just to give you a basic idea – my Lola is around 5 pounds and her daily meal consists of:

• Unlimited access to hay and water
• Breakfast: 1/4 cup of Adult Oxbox pellets
• Breakfast: ~1 cup of veggies containing some sort of mixture of romaine, parsley, cilantro (a favorite!), spinach, kale (another favorite!), dandelion, endive, mint, and basil
• Dinner: ~1 cup of a veggie mixture
• A few random treats in the evening – usually a slice of banana or a Tigertail cracker (serious bunny crack I’ll tell ya!)

Now, I don’t give her that complete mixture all the time – most the time it’s a mixture of 3 (like romaine, cilantro, and kale) or if she’s especially lucky (like this week) we currently have almost all of the above in our veggie drawer pre-cut-up and ready to just grab and throw into her food bowl at meal times.  They stay fresh for about a week so it makes things super easy.

I hope that helps some and might solve the “eating the poo” issue. 

Also too much broccoli can be hard on the bunny tummy! Have you tried out any leafy greens? Bunnies love em

Bunnies are meant to have salad daily and a variety of veggies. Recommended in recent studies for animals and humans was three different types of deep colored veggies daily as each one only gives a partial nutrient in some cases (such as aminos and such) and it takes three to get the mix to make it whole. And a small amount of fruit is also recommended.

Pellets are great because they are a nutritional supplement. However, just like with humans, the best absorption rates come from natural sources rather than supplements.

I would try giving a salad daily and introduce new vegs slowly. It may solve her wanting to eat her own droppings.

It’s really the fruits that should be thought of as treats, because they have a higher sugar content.