Hind leg pee stained

[Claire]

Hi everyone! I’m new here. I have a 10 month old, neutered, dwarf lionhead bunny named Theo. He has yellow stained fur that is starting to mat on only his hind right leg. His feet pads are healthy and not stained. He has good litter habits, and on the advice of my vet I changed the litter to a fast absorbing one, Critter Care paper. I used Yesterday’s News before. He can reach back and clean his feet, but I guess he won’t clean this part of his leg!

I’m conflicted about how to clean him. I gave him a spot bath with water, but the pee stains didn’t come out well. I have talc-free baby powder I could use, and I bought a pet-specific fur trimmer. I read that trimming fur will just expose the skin directly to the urine. I can’t brush it out.

Theo is in excellent health otherwise, eating, binkying, and acting normally. But I’m so worried about this pee leg!! What should I do, bunny experts?

Thanks in advance from Theo & I!

[LittlePuffyTail]

My Bindi can’t groom well due to a previous tongue injury so can often get pee/veggie stained. While it doesn’t get him super clean and white, I find a nice little dusting of corn starch and a little fluffing with a slicker brush helps tidy him up a bit.

[Azerane]

It’s strange that it’s happening on the one leg, like he doesn’t bother to move it out of the way or something and just pees on it. Urine stains generally won’t come out, they can be wiped with a damp cloth or unscented baby wipes to clean them off and take some of the smell away, but the staining will remaining until the fur sheds and regrows. Is the leg constantly wet from pee? If so I’d be concerned about urine scalding developing, but I’m not really sure how to suggest to fix it. How big is his litter box? Does he have plenty of room to move around in it or is it slightly tight around him? My thought was that if his litter box is somewhat small, a bigger one may give him the room to spread out a bit more and prevent him peeing on his leg, though it’s only an idea.

[Claire]

Hi Azerane, thanks for your reply.

Theo has a small dog sized litter box with a low opening, since he liked to do business next to the box. The fur was dry when I checked it today, and I trimmed off pieces of stained/matted fur as best I could. I think I will get a dematting comb and try to prevent more knots from forming there. My guess is that it’s normal for urine to collect over time because of his long fur.

[Azerane]

For some reason the long-hair aspect slipped me by before even though he’s in your pic and you mentioned he was a lionhead, lol. It’s possible the urine is just hitting his fur which leads it to dribble down his leg. If you could keep his butt area (carefully) trimmed, you could probably eliminate the issue

[Author]

Messages