Chronic poopy butt

[Sunny]

Hello everyone!

My bunny Sunny has been having poopy butt problems for a while now. It started about three or four months ago, when she had her first diarrhea episode. It was treated with probiotics (Enterococcus faecium), prebiotics and simethicone for the gases. The vet decided not to prescribe antibiotics cause she was otherwise eating hay and acting fine. She eventually recovered within a week.

But since then, she’s had episodes of sporadic liquid poop (which are definitely not cecotrophes). I think it normally happens in the mornings, cause I see more new stains of poop in her blanket after I wake up (I wil attach a file). However, she also poops fibred and perfectly rounded poops, I think because she eats her hay constantly. She doesn’t seem lethargic at all and in any pain, although she is very lazy, as usual. For the record, I usually clean her entire cage every 2-3 days (4 at most) and I don’t think she ingested anything that could have upset her tummy.

I have tried giving her more probiotics but it doesn’t seem to work anymore. Now it’s been two weeks with constant morning diarrhea (and normal poops too). I have also cut down her pellets and is in an only hay diet, but still I don’t see any improvement. As I said, she seems perfectly fine. She eats lots of hay and right now I think she doesn’t have gas in her tummy that could cause her pain.

The vet doesn’t want to give her antibiotics (which I also think it’s better not to, unless she gets very sick) and doesn’t know what could be causing these problems.

Do you have any advice on what to give her/what to do? Right now it seems like a minor problem, but I’m worried that some day it could get worse…

Thank you in advance

[Bunny House]

The amount of diarrhea seems concerning. She should probably have a decal test done. You could collect the diarrhea on a peepee pad flipped over so you can get it on the plastic side and then collect regular poop for a decal test. Diarrhea like that is often caused by a gi infection. They can have regular poops as well as diarrhea but if it’s happening for a while, antibiotics should be administered to clear it up. Are you seeing a rabbit savvy vet? You may want to contact another rabbit savvy vet for another opinion. If there is an infection, probiotics won’t do anything because the bad bacteria will kill the good bacteria being put in. You need to first kill the bad bacteria and then give good bacteria to help form a good gut flora to prevent infection, the bad bacteria have altered the gi environment to better suit their life so you have to treat it first since that is what killed the good bacteria in the first place.

[Bam]

This is liquid poop or poopy butt, not true diarrhea, because true diarrhea is a very serious acute condition that makes the rabbit very sick. Here is an article that explains this: http://rabbit.org/intermittent-soft-cecotropes-in-rabbits/ From what you write, I think you might be familiar with this though. It’s still a great article, and if you haven’t read it, please do.

You are following the protocol for intermittent soft cecotropes – you have her on a hay only diet and she eats her hay. That is excellent. Her tummy could need more time on the hay-only diet to right itself, the HRS article I linked to says the condition can need up to three months on hay only. If she is an adult rabbit, she can live on hay only for 3 months, but it is wise to give her a variety of good quality hays to cover her nutritional needs. If she’s not an adult but a young, growing rabbit, you can add in alfalfa hay with the grass hay for more protein and calcium. The probiotic you have is an excellent choice for a rabbit, it’s the most prevalent bacterium in the healthy bunny gut.

If this doesn’t resolve with the dietary change, you can investigate further and for example have a fecal test done, as BH says. Whether to treat with antibiotics or not is debated, because antibiotics could kill off all the healthy gut bacteria and allow overgrowth of really bad bacteria that are resistant to most antibiotics. Antibiotics always change the gut microbiota, but not always in a favorable way, and this is true for humans as well as rabbits. In some cases, antibiotics do help though.

[Author]

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