Bailey’s Diet

BAILEY – CHRONIC POOPY BUTT

Even with the new healthy Timothy hay based pellet,  Bailey often suffered from poopybutt. So I took her and a sample of her messy poop to the vet.

The vet tested her icky poop and determined an overgrowth of yeast. But since Bailey’s diet was healthy then it was determined that she just has an extremely sensitive digestive system (not uncommon in lops).  

The vet suggested less pellets, and more greens. But to make sure there weren’t any greens that she was sensitive to, I started out with one kind and added one type each week   

One type per week worked well for Bailey because it could take 24-48 hours to get poopybutt from one item, and it could take that long for it to get out of her system. 

TRIAL & ERROR WITH GREENS

NPB = No PoopyButt      PB! = PoopyButt

I kept going like this trying most of the greens on the HRS list until I narrowed the greens and veggies down.

Most greens caused poopybutt, but I was at least able to find out the few that didn’t through this method. 

I even went back and tried smaller amounts of some greens and found that some, like chicory, didn’t give her poopybutt in more modest servings. 

See the final list of acceptable greens for Bailey on the SOLUTIONS side—->

NOTE: The vet told me it could take months for her system to get balanced again. So not to get discouraged. Actually, in just a couple of weeks, the mess was less, and it became less frequent.

During the time when I was testing out new foods, how did I know what worked and didn’t if she could still have poopybutt for months?   There is poopybutt, then there is massive poopybutt, then there’s gas mask poopybutt.   The things that didn’t sit well with her system during this testing time just made it even more disgusting then the normal disgusting poo.

STILL RANDOM POOPYBUTT?!!
Even though diet really helped prevent daily bouts of poo, she would still get periodic bouts.  I just decided it was part of her makeup and dealt with it since it wasn’t everyday.   But then I discovered a new technique that lessened it even more.

SOLUTION – More greens, less pellets, very limited treats. 

NOTE: If your bunny suffers from frequent poopybutt, you should always have a rabbit savvy vet check your bunny and test their poop first.  Poopybutt can be a symptom of tooth issues, illness and infection, so you want to make sure if that is the case, it gets treated right away.

Treats:

Unfortunately she is one of those rabbits that just can’t handle most treats.  Sad. 🙁

She can ONLY handle:

• 1 raisin 2 times a week.
• 1 Papaya tablet 3 – 4 times a week.

So I give her rosemary and mint as a treat.  She loves them and they don’t upset her stomach.

                      Rosemary              Mint

COUCH CRUMB SCAVENGER ALERT:

Those rascally rabbits!  I caught Bailey getting into the habit of running around the couch sniffing, and then I noticed her munching on things I couldn’t see.  But as I scrunched my eyes to get a better look, I could see itsy bitsy cracker, bread or chips crumbs.  And I remembered we had lunch sitting on the couch, watching tv.
 Even though we bring napkins, crumbs will escape, and she had found it to be the snack gold mine. But for a bunny who can get sludgebutt, it’s no fun later. I now have a little hand vacuum to take care of those crumbs.

 And even though she ended up eating everything, it prevented her from gobbling everything up at once. This helped even more in reducing her bouts of poopybutt.