I have a bun with chronic dysbiosis and to be honest if he gets just a small amount of poopy butt I leave it for a day or 2 and he cleans it up. Once he did have a bigger problem and I ended up having to do a butt bath which was very traumatic for us both, which is why I try to give him an opportunity to deal with it himself first. Sometimes the washcloth really just doesn’t do it but he can habdle it with a little time. It sounds like you have quite a bit of poop though so a butt bath might be needed. If that’s the case, I used a clean litter box and put about an inch of warm water in it and just dipped his hind end in. He obviously freaked out and ended up on my lap where I was able to finish the cleaning with a washcloth. Keep in mind if you do this that you need to dry the bunny as thoroughly as possible an keep an eye on it because even if it’s warm out he can get very cold after. Their fur will trap a lot of water and it takes a long time to dry so get him as dry as you possibly can.

Personally, I have had better luck with a handheld shower head. I would place a towel in the bottom of the bathtub, prop bunny up with one hand under his chest, then use the shower head with the spray turned way down to wet just his butt. Keep in mind though that he was elderly and he didn’t really try to struggle at that point. I would turn the shower head off, use a little bit of castile soap to loosen the poop, then rinse. I would use a blow dryer on low to dry his butt.

Having a dirty butt is not normal, even for a long haired bunny. It sounds like you know you need to figure out the cause. Do let us know if we can help with that as well.

I use the method shown here:

I use either my bathroom sink or a tub like the one shown in the vid, with just an inch or 2 of water and a towel at the bottom for some traction. I hold the front end up so only the bum ends up in the water. Then I towel dry and blow dry on a low setting.

You can also get pretty far with baby wipes if the bun will tolerate you messing around with their bum. I would soak baby wipes to get them even wetter and then use those to remove the poops. But honestly, that usually took longer than just doing the bath! If your bun doesn’t mind being handled then the bum baths really aren’t too bad.

With my dydbiosis bun Bam, I pretty much used the method in the HowCast video in Dana’s post, with 2 differences:

1) I had the litterbox/wash basin on the floor, in the bathroom. If the bun decides to hop out of the bath, it wont be a big drop to the floor. Plus inside the bathroom any mess that might occur will be manageable. 2) I let Bam support himself by putting his “hands” on the rim of the wash basin. That way he could stand up while I scooped up warm/tepid water on his behind. I felt that it gave him a sense of control over his situation.

I did use a hair dryer on him, on a low setting. I sat him on my lap and held my free hand on his behind so I could ruffle his fur with my fingers at the same time as I could continously feel how warm the air got. We obv dont want it to get too hot. He often fell asleep in my lap as I dried his butt 🥰 In the summer a (preferably microfiber) towel will as a rule do great though.