Posted By bam on 9/18/2018 1:59 AM

I think it’s calcium. Rabbits have calcium in their urine. It’s basically chalk. It’s normal and healthy, unless it gets too much. The calcium deposits on whatever the bun is peeing on, it’s like a very fine powder. If it dries, its difficult to get off from whatever it’s stuck to unless you use vinegar. But before it has dried it would mix with water to a milky white. In the olden days when rabbits lived in cages with no litterbox you’d practically always get white areas on the cage floor from all the calcium in the pee building up. But with use of litterboxes and highly absorbant litter, we dont get to see that so much.

If it’s really thick it could be a sign that the bun is dehydrated (=drinks too little water) or getting too much calcium in the diet. Kale and parsley are high in calcium. Sometimes the bun is getting too much calcium from their pellets. Alfalfa hay is also rich in calcium.

Why he’s peing in the waterbowl is a bit more difficult to understand. Have you checked his downstairs area so there’s no problem with his male parts? I’m thinking if he has some irritated skin etc, getting cool water on it could be soothing. We’d be happy for more info!

Thank you for the quick reply. We’re both new to being rabbit owners and have never heard of this now I feel a bit silly.

Actually Zipper drinks quite a bit, especially if there is ice in their water bowl which there has been a lot due to this crazy summer heat. Zipper is a little more than 4 months old and my friend has just introduced lettuce, carrots, and apples but none of them is to an excessive point. She’s taking it slowly. She has been giving them Oxbow young rabbit pellets. Could it be that?

Yes. That was one of the first things we did and since they are a hairless rabbit it was easy to see and we didn’t see any irritation. He sometimes pees in his water bowl when water is given from the wrong place which we find really odd since all the water comes from the well. But this is also something he has done on and off for the 4 months since they have been living with my friend.

Posted By bam on 9/18/2018 3:11 AM

Never feel the least bit silly about bunny questions! It’s pretty much just rabbits that expel excess calcium via their pee, practically all other mammals get rid of extra calcium in the poop. So it’s an interesting peculiarity typical of buns!

He’s very young so he should have junior pellets. They have extra calcium and it’s needed for growth. The house rabbit society recommends you give alfalfa hay plus alfalfa based pellets up to 6-7 months of age, because it’s so important that young buns get extra calcium. Unless the urine you see comes out very thick like white paint, I’d not worry. Growth occurs in little “jumps”. At some point during the day his system is depositing calcium into his skeleton to make it hard and strong, at another point, he doesn’t use all the calcium he gets so he pees it out. Putting him on a lower calcium diet could mean he’d not get enough calcium for his growing skeleton and muscles and also nerve-signalling and that would not be good at all.

I’m glad you’ve checked his lower area! It’s always good to keep an eye, you could make a habit of doing a weekly once-over check of area, eyes, incisors and nails.

If nothing seems wrong, this could just be one of those rabbit things that humans don’t fully understand. It’s rather impractical though, seeing that he needs fresh water (by fresh I mean un-peed in water). You could perhaps try and introduce a bottle as well. That way he’d always have access to clean water.

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I’m sorry for the long wait. There was a lot of craziness going on so I forgot to check everything.

In any case thank you once again! I e-mailed your reply to her not too long ago.

She tried to get Zipper to drink out of a water bottle when her older brother first brought him home however he refused to drink from it. Though we haven’t been able to talk for long lately I think that it could have been one of those weird rabbit things that we don’t understand. I’ll let you know if she tells me anything more about it as soon as possible.

Once again, thank you.

Posted By bam on 9/24/2018 1:40 AM

I hope this was just some passing wabbit silliness, the peeing in the water bowl. Sometimes you can teach a bun to drink from a bottle by smearing a little bit of banana on the sipper. Bowls are better though, they tend to drink more from a bowl so hopefully he’ll stop peeing in his water. Maybe he was pee marking it as his water? At 4 months he’d be starting puberty and rabbits in puberty tend to pee- and poop mark quite a lot.

She was able to finally tell me that Zipper has stopped peeling in the water bowl. Still slightly pooping in it though it’s only been two times  since he has stopped peeing.