Eating Poop

[Lightchick]

I’m sure there have been other threads on the topic, but I can’t figure out how to make the search function work! 

Lizzy has taken to eating her poop in the last couple weeks.  Her diet is the same.  She eats all her veg, pellets, and hay.  She runs around and binkies and begs for treats.  She’s not having a shed currently.  She’s totally normal, except now there is virtually no poops left in her litter boxes when I clean them each morning.  I do find her poops in the “common” litterbox that she and Robbie both use when they have playtime.  But I KNOW she is not just holding it for 20 hours in order to only go in that box!  In fact, I’ve seen her jump out of that box, and in-so-doing, kick a poop onto the floor.  Used to be, she’d leave those for her slave to pick up.  Now she happily munches them up as soon as they hit the floor!

I have taken to crouching next to her when she’s in her litterbox munching, trying to see if she’s eating hay or poop!  I can’t tell, the sneak….

I wouldn’t ask if it were just a few.  But if she’s eating almost everything she’s making in her home litterboxes, thats a lot of poop she’s consuming!  Is this a problem?

If there’s another thread that answers my question, I hope someone can point me toward it…

[jerseygirl]

I posted about this a while back.   https://www.binkybunny.com/FORUM/tabid/54/view/topic/postid/80591/forumid/3/tpage/1/Default.aspx

Jersey eats hers a bit but doesn’t clean out her litter – that’s a lot LC!  You’ll find there’s some talk in the thread (link) about fibre in diet.  I’m also wondering if they instinctively do it when not producing enough cecal.  Like maybe it’s a secondary source of the beneficial nutrients?  I never see the cecals, she must have them ‘direct’ delivery.  Sometimes I think I see her getting cecals then she sits there chewing away on what looks more like fecal.      Fecals, cecals, smecals….

Any similarities?

[Lightchick]

Thanks, JG..at least BB says there doesn’t seem to be much harm in it…I hope…

“Fecals, cecals, smecals” my thoughts exactly!

Way back when, I started a thread about, “you know you’re a little obsessed when..” WELL, you KNOW you’re a loon when you’re on hands-and-knees on the floor staring at your bunny in her litter-box, trying to figure out if she’s direct-delivering a fecal, a cecal, or just nibbling a bit of hay!

Her poops have always been smaller than I’d like. She’s never eaten as much hay as I’d like. But none of it is any different now than it was before she started this latest bit…

ICK!

[jerseygirl]

Yes Jers also doesn’t eat enough hay. Mmmm………?
Oh, and if you were doing that (fecal/cecal watching) about an hour ago – then halfway around the world another loon was doing same simultaneously!

[Lightchick]

LMAO!

At least we’re not alone in our lunacy!

[Kokaneeandkahlua]

LOL !!!

Well I hope you get it figured out! Although a bun cleaning their own litter box is cool-its probably not good she’s eating that much poop!

[jerseygirl]

Lightchick….I looked up this issue on allexperts.com as it has been puzzling me for sometime too.  Don’t know why I didn’t look there before?  Though not necessarily the answer, makes interesting reading.   I’ve posted what I found below. I know I shouldn’t but I find this funny!

Rabbit: Eating Fecal Pellets
Expert: Dana Krempels, Ph.D. – 9/10/2008

Question
Hello,

I just recently adopted a pet bunny from a friend and wanted to just double check something. I knew before that rabbits eat their own poo, and I read an answer previously about the two different kinds of poo. However, this morning, I noticed my bunny eating her own poo-but it looked exactly like the kind of poo she normally does..and leaves. They were round pellets and relatively large (compared to my pet mice ones).
Is their an obvious difference in the two kinds of poo? or are they very similar, so I’m just thinking they were the same kinds? is it possible my bunny is eating both her kinds of poo? and what would that mean?

Thank you!

Answer
Dear Adriana,

The two types of pellets do look different, as described here:

http://www.bio.miami.edu/hare/poop.html

Sometimes a bunny will eat a fecal pellet, and this is more common in bunnies with “Cowpoop Syndrome” who have a genetic condition that causes the mixing of fecal and cecal droppings. But in either case, it’s not something to worry about. It’s pretty unusual, and generally happens accidentally when the bunny is also eating cecotropes that come down at the same time as the regular poops.

Hope that helps.

Dana

Bunnies>Cows> Mad Cow? Lizzie? Jersey?

[sweetbluebun]

My rabbit Cheeky pulls his fecals out from under there and cracks them like eggs, I’m not sure how much of them he actually eats, but it is very messy by the end of the day.

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