Cecal Dysbiosis Treatment

[Lia]

My bunny has been having digestive issues for a while. I made topics about it before. She’s currently recovering from stasis but the cause of it wasn’t entirely known. Now, I’m pretty sure it was connected to dysbiosis.

She’s ok through most of the day, she eats and poops normally but she gets bad gas episodes every day at around 10am, which is when she’s eating and leaving excessive/uneaten cecotropes. Her cecotropes aren’t liquid but they are extremely soft and the clusters fall apart very easily. She was getting some alfalfa hay in addition to meadow+ timothy because shes only 4 months but I’m pretty sure it made things worse so I took alfalfa away a while ago.

She seems to be a bit better, the gas episodes are shorter and she’s not grinding her teeth anymore but they still happen everyday. I’ll talk to the vet but I also want to know if there is anything I could do to speed up her recovery? She’s getting simethicone and metoclopramide to help with gas, and meloxicam if she’s in a lot of pain.

 

[DanaNM]

Have you tried a probiotic? At her age it’s possible she was weaned too early and her gut flora never properly established. Wild life rehabbers use Bene-bac for weaning orphaned cotton-tails.

Do you have any other rabbits? My vet in the past prescribed “Poop shakes” for cecal dysbiosis, where take cecotropes or poops from a healthy rabbit and mix them into critical care.

. . . The answers provided in this discussion are for general guideline purposes only. The information is not intended to diagnose or treat your pet. Seek the advice of your veterinarian or a qualified behaviorist.  

[DanaNM]

Her cecotropes also don’t sound terrible to me, can you post a picture? It’s pretty normal for young rabbits to have excess cecotropes because their diet is more rich. I really think she should be on an alfalfa source at her age, she needs the extra protein for her growth.

. . . The answers provided in this discussion are for general guideline purposes only. The information is not intended to diagnose or treat your pet. Seek the advice of your veterinarian or a qualified behaviorist.  

[Lia]

I don’t have any other rabbits. She’s my first rabbit in years. We’ve had rabbits before, but never one with such bad digestive issues, or any digestive issues really. And they weren’t half as spoiled as her!

Someone recommended giving her Bio-Lapis. The vet said it’s ok so I did, but it made her gassy and she stopped pooping, again. The next morning she was leaving a lot more cecotropes. She didn’t even have a lot of bio-lapis. I did manage to get my hands on bene-bac gel ( it was very difficult to find and very expensive) but now I’m afraid to give it to her because it has sucrose. Bio-lapis has dextrose and she reacted badly to it. It seems like she can’t handle sugars at all? You might be onto something saying she may have been weaned too early. In addition her diet was mostly carbohydrates at the start.

I do want her to keep eating alfalfa because she’s growing but she got so much better since I stopped giving it to her. I tried decreasing the amount of it at first but that didn’t help much. She has a salt lick so she gets some minerals still.

She was also only eating meadow hay for a couple of days because the timothy hay ran out and the delivery got delayed. She’s back on the timothy/meadow hay now but her poop got weird. It’s wet and mushy? It’s formed properly, it just isn’t dry and it falls apart very easily. I’ll attach a picture. Is that relatively normal after reintroducing timothy or is that another thing to worry about?

 

I feel like I’m relying on the forum a bit too much but I can’t say I trust the vets here anymore…

 

These are her cecotropes, it’s a but squished they are relatively normal but they are extremely soft.

She left these a couple of minutes ago. Again they’re well formed but they feel wet and squishy.

 

[DanaNM]

The first pic to me looks like a cecotrope that got kind of smashed.

When I think of cecal dysbiosis, I think of all the poops being kind of mashed together, without any normally formed poops or separate cecals. To me this looks more like excess soft cecals, as opposed to full on dysbiosis. The metaclopromide could actually be partially to blame, as it stimulates the contraction of the gut, so she could be passing the cecals before they have a chance to fully form. But that fact that she is also passing normal poops is a very good sign.

There’s a pic of dysbiosis here (towards the bottom): https://imgur.com/a/5N4lD#ra2RfjI

What are her symptoms during her gas episodes? Does she stop eating?

. . . The answers provided in this discussion are for general guideline purposes only. The information is not intended to diagnose or treat your pet. Seek the advice of your veterinarian or a qualified behaviorist.  

[Lia]

Ah, a friend who used to have lots of rabbits told me that maybe the bacteria in her cecum is all over the place because of the sugar so I thought it’d be the same thing as dysbiosis, just not as advanced.

The first thing that happens is the poops stop completely, she’s usually like a poop machine, then she stops running around, hides in her house ( which she never does unless she gets gas ) and presses her tummy to the ground. She won’t eat, even the fluffy parts of timothy hay, which she goes crazy for, until I give her simethicone and massage her. I can feel and hear the gas too. Her stomach also gets very hard. If it’s really bad she will grind her teeth but she has been getting better so that doesn’t happen often anymore.

It used to last all day, she would go 9-10 hours without pooping then maybe leave maybe 10 pellets after lots of care and back to no pooping. Currently she’s eating and pooping normally, she makes I wanna say maybe 150 poops a day? But she has those episodes at 10am ish every day. That’s the weirdest part to me, it happens at the same time every day, and always when she’s leaving cecotropes.

I think I’m getting desperate because it’s been over a month now. If I tried giving her bene-bac, how much of it would she need? I don’t think the vet would be familiar with it, he’ll probably say it shouldn’t harm her.

[Wick & Fable]

I may be missing something, but everything you describe actually seems… normal? Outside the GI stasis episode (which sometimes those happen and we’ll never know the cause; rabbits get gassy sometimes, it happens), a lot of what I’m reading again, seem typical?

This does sound like what is actually a typical case of a young rabbit who, on an alfalfa diet, produces excess cecotropes. That is a common occurrence. As long as there still exist plenty of healthy poops (as you pictured in the 2nd photo; those look healthy to me), I actually wouldn’t be too concerned about the excess cecos if they are truly in response to the alfalfa-heavy diet. Producing more than is being eaten can simply be a sign that adequate nutrition is had, therefore the rabbit does not need to eat them. You can try reducing the alfalfa if cutting it out completely is worrisome towards growth at this point.

The 10AM cyclical cecotrope thing also actually sounds normal to me– both my rabbits have their cecotropes occur around the same time(s) each day, and so if they were producing more than necessary, I imagine that means it’d be around those times they’d be left around, as you are mentioning. In terms of cyclical “gassiness”, it could be in response to what meal was given earlier (ex. if you give pellets in the early morning or something, perhaps it’s a reaction to the pellets). It can also simply be the time your rabbit tends to chill out in preparation for sleeping. Rabbits do not poop nor eat 24/7. They are crepuscular so chilling in the same spot for sometimes hours on end during the late morning/early afternoon time range can be quite normal. If you’re hearing gas bubbles/gurgles, that too can be normal and actually a good sign since noise means that things are moving.

Can you explain her most recent, current diet in terms of quantities? So like, today/yesterday. Depending on how condensed the timeline has been with all these things, it could be that she needs some time on a consistent diet so her GI system can reorient itself and expecting complete health gut right now is unreasonable. Again, if the poops in the 2nd photo you posted make up a lot of her poops during the day and she’s leaving plenty of them, that is a great sign and for me is not a flag.

The answers provided in this discussion are for general guideline purposes only. The information is not intended to diagnose or treat your pet. Seek the advice of your veterinarian or a qualified behaviorist.

[LBJ10]

Has she been on any other pellets before? I’m thinking Wick may be on to something. She mentioned that the gas episodes could be a reaction to her pellets. Perhaps there is something in them that doesn’t agree with her.

[Lia]

Sorry! I might be making some things more confusing than they have to be. It’s a bit hard to include all the information because its been so long and so much has happened.

She was never fed pellets. When we got her she was being fed barley and I planned on switching her onto good quality alfalfa pellets never had the chance. She was barely eating any hay at the start only barley and she was fed some sugary snacks by my mother because ” the previous rabbit could have some and she was fine “. The vet told me not to fed her pellets or snacks under any circumstances, and do give her alfalfa if she’s losing weight. Which she’s actually not, she even gained some in the past week. She’s eating timothy and meadow throughout the day and she eats lots of it outside the morning issues.

She was diagnosed with stasis so she’s currently on a hay only diet. She can’t handle anything else as it upsets her. Alfalfa made her gas episodes more frequent and more severe.  She had to be taken to an emergency vet at one point.

The problem with her gas is shell stop pooping, eating and drinking for 6-8 hours or more if the gas isn’t resolved. If it was a tiny bit of gas but she kept acting normal it wouldn’t be an issue. Her temperature also drops like crazy then.

I think the cecotropes are probably ok because I did see her eat some of them. I probaby jumped to conclusions to early because she’s still having these issues after a month. She even got gassy when I was introducing timothy hay which shouldn’t be happening.

[DanaNM]

Thanks for the background! I remember this now from another thread, but couldn’t remember all the details. I do think it might be worth trying some Benebac (you can check with your vet though to make sure it’s OK). When I’ve used the gel that comes in the tube, I’ve given my adult bun about a 1/2 inch long strip, so you could give a small amount at first and see how it agrees with her.  It does sound like she is slowly improving though! It can take time for the gut flora to establish correctly, and since she was on such a poor diet before, it could take even more time. My vet said the most important thing for the gut flora to establish is plenty of hay, so you are on the right track with that.

. . . The answers provided in this discussion are for general guideline purposes only. The information is not intended to diagnose or treat your pet. Seek the advice of your veterinarian or a qualified behaviorist.  

[Lia]

You actually said the same thing the vet from today said! Hay hay hay! This one seems very knowledgeable and has experience treating rabbits with stasis. I asked about bene-bac and they said that it shouldn’t harm her but they’re not sure if it’ll help much. They also said to keep feeding her hay and make sure I have simethicone at home. I was actually told not to feed her a lot of alfalfa because even though it could be ok for now it could cause some issues in the future. They wouldn’t recommend it in high amounts even to young rabbits because of the high calcium content. That part is a bit strange because the other vet said to feed her alfalfa. They also gave me some herbal medicine that they said helps some rabbits with stasis, but again because mine is so young they said to give her a tiny bit and see how she reacts.

Apparently more people here are choosing to adopt rabbits so this vet clinic started to look for specialized vets from abroad. So that’s very nice! I really hated being told by other vets that it might better to put the rabbit down and get a new one. Anyways thank you for the advice! Hopefully she’ll make full recovery soon.

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