Liquid from cecotropes

[Moonlightbunny66]

Pinky has been making a few brown spots a week on the blanket as long as I’ve had him. I was thinking it was from eating cecotropes. I was able to watch him up close while he was eating them and yeah there was brown liquid dripping out. Is this normal? I don’t think this happens with Muffin.

[NoodletheRabbit]

My rabbit had the exact thing happen to him before too! What I’m thinking, and this did seem what the problem was for my rabbit, was that Pinky’s GI tract might be a little off-balance. My rabbit is on probiotics right now, and it seems to be helping him a lot. Of course, at this stage that Pinky’s at, it doesn’t seem to be serious enough that he needs probiotics prescribed, because you don’t even know what the problem is. But if it consists, and gets worse, I would talk to your veterinarian, and see what they think. I know that with my rabbit, it was consistant, and then got really bad, but after a bit of a diet-switch and probiotics, he seemed to get better. But I wouldn’t worry about it if it doesn’t seem to get any worse. 🙂

[Moonlightbunny66]

@Noodletherabbit Thank you! It doesn’t happen every time he eats his cecotropes, but I often find brown spots on the blankets. What diet did your bunny switch to? Thanks. 🙂

[NoodletheRabbit]

Thats great that it doesn’t happen every time he eats his cecostropes. Sorry for the delayed response!

So back in late june, he went into GI stasis (first time) and before then he was eating little to no hay, no fresh greens, and mostly pellets. The vets instructed us to give him a specific diet of a few pellets, greens, and lots of hay. We did that slowly, but I don’t think it was slowly enough for him, because that was when he started getting the runny cecostropes, and so after lots of reading online, we decided to switch his diet to almost all hay, and very few greens, and no pellets. About a month passed, then things started ging downhill again, he was losing tons of weight, and getting runny feces. So we brought him to the vet, and we changed his diet back to more greens, pellets, and hay, but not mostly only hay. Anyways, long story short, I think we shocked his system by switching his diet after GI Stasis, and then when we switched to only hay, he wasn’t getting enough nutrients, and those things contributed to an off-balance digestive tract. But then we very slowly introduced the most recent diet of hay, greens, and pellets, and things have been fine. But also Noodle has a very touchy stomach, and so the diet that works for him doesn’t nessasarily work for Pinky. I would talk to your vet if it persists and gets worse, but until then, I don’t see any need to worry. 😀

Sorry for the extremely long answer, it was just hard to explain shortly!! 🙂

[Moonlightbunny66]

Awww poor bunny with tummy troubles. I’m glad he’s feeling better. It can be tricky to figure out what’s wrong! I’ll keep watching my Pinky. Thanks for the reply!

[LBJ10]

Have you checked his scent glands? That could be a possibility too.

[NoodletheRabbit]

Thank you @Moonlightbunny66! Bunnies are very tricky to figure out whats wrong!!! Yes, I agree with @LBJ10, clogged scent glands could be an issue.

[Moonlightbunny66]

@LBJ10 I haven’t checked them. What would it look like clogged? Should I clean it? Thank you.

I’ve also made a thread about him having mushy poop. Or they could be cecotropes? Diet change seems to help a bit with that but I don’t know if it’s related to the liquid dripping out.

[LBJ10]

If there is a problem, I think it would be pretty obvious. His scent glands would be full and sometimes the gunk gets hard.

[Moonlightbunny66]

Okay thank you. I’ve never looked at their scent glands before. I know that some people routinely clean them. I don’t really know if that’s necessary unless they’ve got an issue though. Pinky can be pretty squirmy too lol.

[NoodletheRabbit]

Yes, its a good idea to check once in a while, but it’s up to you if you want to clean them regularly. Some bunnies keep them very clean without the help of humans. It’s definitely not a pleasant job, but if it needs to be done, then it needs to be done.

[Moonlightbunny66]

Thanks for the info! 🙂

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