Megacolon bunny

[Rafaela]

Hi everyone!

I have a 9 months beautiful girl called Missô and she has been diagnosed with megacolon 3 months ago.

The weird thing is that sometimes (around 2 times in a month), when i’m going to clean Missô’s in the morning, i’ll find little spots of what i think it’s soft poop stains. It does has a strong smell, not unbearable, just like cecotropes’. When dried, it’s hard and one day i found it fresh and it does have a texture like unfrozen ice cream.

I’ve talked to my exotic doctor and he said it’s normal since the other poops of the day stays normal. But it does triggers a bit of curiosity and concerning around Missô’s health.

Does anyone has any idea of what it could be? Is it normal with bunnies with megacolon?

(she’s eating, drinking and binking normally)

Thank you!

[Bam]

The un-scientif name for this is “poop juice”. The strong smell means it comes from the cecum. The cecum is where the rabbit ferment food into cecotropes that they subsequently eat.

Poop juice can occur in “healthy” buns from time to time, so its not specific for megacolon buns. The cause is believed to be a disruption of the gut microbiome.

It’s important that a bun eats its cecotropes, but in a megacolon bun, this can be difficult to obtain. The cecotropes contain essential nutrients such as vitamin B and K, volatile fatty acids and also 20-30% of the bun’s daily protein requirements. These nutrients are made by the microbes in the cecum. Some vets recommend you fortify a megacolon bun’s diet with a few sunflower- or pumpkin seeds daily, because they contain essential fatty acids. For buns that have to wear a cone so they cant reach down to eat their cecos, some vets recommend supplementing the bun’s diet with probiotics as a sort of (short term) substitute for the cecals. I dont know if that works, but it wont harm.

 

[Rafaela]

Hi! Thank you so much for answering, i was truly concerned and i feel relieved now.

May i ask you the scientific or formal name of juicy poop, please. Do you know any article where i can read more about it? Thank you!

[Bam]

It’s called cecal dysbiosis, sometimes ISC, intermittent soft cecotropes. Poop juice would fall under that category, but cecal dysbiosis doesnt necessarily result in completely liquid cecals. It often presents as clumps of gooey poop that sticks to the bun’s butt. But these terms are really not megacolon-specific.

There are facebook groups for megacolon buns, since their situation is (even) more complex. Megacolon disrupts the backwash mechanism in the bunny gut, ie the (neuronal) mechanism that enables some of the food the bun eats to travel back in the system, to get to the cecum.

[LBJ10]

I’m curious because 6 months old is pretty young for megacolon to be diagnosed. Most bunnies are not diagnosed until they are a bit older. Does your bunny have the Charlie markings?

[Rafaela]

hi! charlie markings are the black and white ones? (sorry, my first language is portuguese and sometimes i can’t get some therms hahahaha)

she’s around 9 months according to her blood test, when i rescued her she was a young rabbit already. i didn’t know some rabbits were diagnosed later! she used to poop double stools and i started to feel her belly swollen everyday when i was going to brush her, so i took Missô to the exotic vet reference we have on our state and after 1 month and a buuunch of exames later they diagnosed her with megacolon!

 

thank you so much for answering

[LBJ10]

Yes, most megacolon bunnies are almost all white with just a little bit of color (usually on the head/face). Megacolon is linked to the broken (En) gene. This isn’t to say other bunnies cannot have megacolon, but it is less common (i.e. not the classic case). You bunny looks Vienna marked. Does she have blue eyes?

Double poops usually indicate a gut slowdown. The poops collide and get stuck together.

[Rafaela]

some disorders and diseases in rabbits are colligated to their breed directly?

she has dark brown eyes, i’m trying to pin a new picture here but seems like i’m unable to do it 🙁

 

 

[Rafaela]

thank you so much, i’m going to search them, but do you have any recommendations of groups to me?

since in Brazil we don’t have a large bunny community, i always tend to join foreign bunny groups!

she’s been under treatment so far and it’ll be so important to see how other bunnies’ owner are coping and caring with their babies diagnoses

[Bam]

Megacolon in English spots or white rabbits is caused by double copies of a gene called the KIT-gene. This gene can occur in other animals as well. It interferes with the development of gut innervation.

Your bun is not a pale color, so she’s unlikely to have that double copy of the gene. This is why its unusual to see fullblown megacolon diagnosed in a bun as young as yours. There is no specific test for megacolon, so its diagnosed by symptoms and by trial-and-error management.  Medirabbit has a list of differentals (ie  possible other causes for poop disturbances that are not megacolon).

http://www.medirabbit.com/EN/GI_diseases/Differential/mega_differential.htm

Here is some good info about megacolon:

https://wabbitwiki.com/wiki/Megacolon

If your rabbit really has megacolon, treatment/management would be the same regardless of the cause. This wiki also lists 2 Facebook groups under Online support groups, but I’m not familiar with them so I cant say if theyre good groups

 

 

 

[LBJ10]

OK, I typed out a bunch of stuff and it disappeared. AH!

Thank you Bam for the links. I think they do a better job of explaining what I’m trying to say here. Vienna marked bunnies don’t necessarily have blue eyes, but they almost always have at least a white snip on their nose or front paw (and in other Vienna marked bunnies, the white can extend to the point where it resembles Dutch-like markings). Anyway, the point I’m trying to make is your bunny doesn’t look like a classic megacolon bunny. If your bunny was misdiagnosed, then that would be good news!

Double poops is a sign of gut slowdown. Gas is, well, gas but can lead to stasis. Mucus is a sign of inflammation. Poop juice can be anything, really. Now we are not vets, so please don’t take this as actual medical advice. But the symptoms you are describing do not fit with megacolon. This seems to me that this could simply be cecal dysbiosis. Is there another vet you could get a second opinion from?

Management of symptoms can be similar, depending on what they are. But megacolon is a chronic condition, whereas a bunny can overcome cecal dysbiosis.

Can you tell us more information about her symptoms? What you are feeding her? Etc?

[Rafaela]

Thank you so much for sharing it with me, for real. I’m always concerned and worried about my bunny health and i felt truly scared, specially because it’s my first time as a bunny owner and i searched everything before adopting her and got her to veterinarians who are reference in São Paulo because i want to give her an excellent life. Binky Bunny community always helped me and i really appreciate the amount of information, tips and articles that i can absorve to keep giving Missô a healthy life! Thank you so much!!

[DanaNM]

Just catching up, I agree with the others that megacolon is an interesting diagnosis for a bun this young and with her markings. But that’s not to say she isn’t having some issues with the functioning of her cecum. It could be that something similar is happening that isn’t linked to the genes that megacolon is linked to.

How often were her symptoms persisting? And when did they start? What treatments is the vet having you try, and do they seem to be helping?

Can you describe her diet in detail? And any poop pics would be helpful as well!

. . . 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.  

[Rafaela]

Hi! Thank you so much for answering. Usually the symptoms which is only this discharge persist for just one day and only happened one time at one day. It occurs one to two times in a month.

Since we adopted it starts happened, the weird thing is that i expected it to end when she started doing the treatment.

When we first get her, she was too skinny and even eating, she wasn’t gaining weight. When they first examined her and got a x ray and blood test, the percentage of red blood cells was way too low, so she took veterinarian Hemolitan. After a week, she still didn’t get weight. So after a lot of treatment for anemia, her poops started to get weird, just as double ones and this discharge, so they started to medicate her with Domperidona and it worked, she started gaining weight, her coat started to get more vivid and shining and she started to get more interested and happy. I must add that her ears and tooth were (and are hahaha) healthy and normal.

She responded very poorly to leafs, so whenever she ate dark green leafs her poops would get weird too (we used to give to her around 2 cups and a half of 3 types of dark green leafs daily, specially chicory, unlimited timothy and coast cross hay and two bowls of water because we live in a hot tropical country). Since the leafs were making her tummy hurts, doctor said to enter a full hay diet, which was working very well, until she poop like that again 🙁

(her size is around 45 cm and pounds 1.813 kg)

also i don’t know why but i can’t pin a pic her! i just got a pic of fresh poo

[LBJ10]

Hmm… anemia, underweight, unable to gain weight, weird poop… was your bunny tested for diseases or parasites? Coccidia comes to mind. Here is an article on it: http://www.medirabbit.com/EN/GI_diseases/Protozoal_diseases/Cocc_en.htm

Severity of symptoms depends on how many oocytes were ingested.

I had to google Domperidona. It’s a motility drug. That would make sense if your bunny was presenting with double poops at the time.

So she is on a hay-only diet then now? Do you feed pellets?

[Rafaela]

Fortunately she tested negative for diseases and parasites, they made blood and poop tests!

At the time she was having tons of incidents of double poops and nowadays she haven’t made a double one since the treatment.

I feed her pellets from a brazilian brand called “NuTrópica”, it’s nationally recommended to small mammals, i feed her the premium adult one which doesn’t contain transgenics.

[LBJ10]

The nutritional analysis seems OK. I’m not seeing an ingredients list on their website though. I assume it is grass-based.

OK, negative for parasites. That’s good. I mean, it is possible to get a false negative with coccidia but you would think they would have seen something if the bunny was exhibiting symptoms. Anemia can also be caused by malnutrition and their whole system getting out of whack.

OK, so she is getting hay and these pellets. Veggies seem to cause upset. No double poops right now. This still sounds like just a “regular” case of GI problems. Either dysbiosis or intermittent soft cecotropes. Some bunnies are just prone to gas. We were having a discussion recently about non-genetic causes of chronic GI problems (too early weaning, improper diet at a young age, etc.).

 

 

[Rafaela]

It makes sense because when she was baby, the house she used to live was inappropriate in many ways, the space the lived was too small, dirty and they feed her tons of fruits and bad pellets. I’m pretty sure she was around 1 to 2 months, a literal baby.

What is appropriate to do when the bunny has a non-genetic GI problem?

[Wick & Fable]

My recommendation is keep the diet basic, so majority hay with the appropriate amount of good quality pellets and then over time, you can try incorporating veggies a little at a time. If it’s hard to find agreeable veggies, it’s not too big of a deal since pellets provide the nutrition needed. Veggies are just a nice add on for stimulation.

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]

I agree that lots of hay is the best thing for helping the gut microbiome to establish. A variety of different grass hays is good. There are also a number of rabbit probiotics out there, but the jury is out on whether they help or not.

If you have access to a healthy rabbit that is known to be parasite-free, you can also try sprinkling crushed up poops over her hay (my vet recommended this in the past), or better yet, if you can get cecotropes you can try feeding those mixed with critical care (my vet called these “poop shakes” lol). There is a risk of introducing a disease so it’s not always recommended if the bun is very poorly or you are unsure if the other bun is 100% healthy.

. . . 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.  

[Rafaela]

I’ve been in contact with my veterinarian this week and we also agreed to keep the basic diet for here. Luckily, she’s been getting better and the soft poops events been getting less and less frequent. But since i’ve been paying more attention on her booty lately, i’ve noticed her genitals a bit swollen :/ i’m going to make a new post talking about it because somehow i can update new pictures to this session. Thank you so much for advices!

[Rafaela]

Thank you so much for helping me! I’ll try to sprinkle healthy poops on her hay, also i loved the poop shake hahahaha!

[Bam]

Hay is the absolute best pre-biotic for buns. Pre-biotics is food for the desireable gut microbes. Its important for humans, but its way more important for buns. Humans break down food with the aid of various enzymes as well as microbes, rabbits are pretty much totally reliant on microbes.

 

[Rafaela]

Thank you so much for helping, luckily she’s a big hay eater and i never had big problems with her hay activity! Thank you again

[Author]

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