Poo Pellets Lighter in Color Than Normal?

[Roxygirl]

Hi Everyone,

Yet another question from the new Mom!  As I posted a few days ago, Heffie is a 7 month old Holland Lop and is 4 days out from his neuter surgery and getting him to eat and drink has been a battle!  Starting Saturday morning at 5 a.m. he was on .075 cc Butorphanol for pain and 2cc Azithromycin for preventing infection.  He spent all day Saturday laying in one corner of his xpen and I had to put veggies and water in front of his face to get him to eat and drink and he stopped using his water bottle.  On Sunday I called the vet who did his surgery and asked about his behavior and was told to cut his next dose of Butorphanol down to .05 cc.  I had just given him his afternoon dose so I would have to wait until the next one to cut it down.  By 7:30 p.m., it was still more of the same, small hard poos, a some pee, but still having to put veggies in front of his face and water in front of him.  He wasn’t eating a ton of his veggies, but he was eating, and he wasn’t drinking much.  I called a vet closer to my house (the vet who did his neuter is over an hour away) that is known to be experienced with rabbits and spoke to the vet tech as the rabbit vet wasn’t in until the next morning.  We decided not to give the next dose of the pain medication and bring him in for an appointment the next morning and I woke up every 2 hours to check on him.

On Sunday, the vet gave him some Sub Q fluids and said his incision looked great with minimal redness and no swelling.  She told me to watch him over the next 24 hours and see how he was.

By yesterday, he’d finally eaten most of his timothy pellets from Friday night, was eating 2 servings of mixed veggies a day (mix of spinach, romaine, basil and a few tiny slivers of apple and banana to get him eating.)and I caught him munching hay, which he doesn’t really like all that much.  He’s been acting like his normal self, bounding around the room, playing in his favorite Hidey Place, and coming up to investigate me for treats but was still drinking less water than was normal for him prior to the surgery. 

This morning, all of his pellets, most of the veggies, and a little bit of water were gone and he had jumped over his barrier in the middle of the night and I found him lazing around behind the couch in the liing room! (Sometimes when he doesn’t think its bedtime yet, he’s rather indignant and proves to me that he doesn’t have to go to bed if he doesn’t want to!)  He was also acting pretty perky and like his normal self.  I weighed him today and he has lost .4 pounds since Friday, but last night was the first time he’s eaten more than a few timothy pellets all weekend.  When I got home tonight, he has pees in his litterbox and some lighter than normal colored poos, about the normal amount for while I’m away at work.  They seem to be just soft enough, and squish when you squeeze them and not at all watery or like diarrhea, but just not his normal color.

All of that background for these simple questions!:

1.)  What does it mean if Heffie has lighter colored poops?  Could it be because he’s really only been eating veggies and orchard grass hay all weekend?  I give him a little alfalfa as a treat and to encourage eating hay and was giving him a little bit more than usual because it was one of the few things he would eat after surgery.

2.) Is he drinking less water because he’s eating more veggies?  He’s probably getting about 2-2 1/2 cups per day now, compared to 3/4-1 cup before the surgery.  I am rinsing everything but sometimes he waits to eat them until the water has dried.  Veggies have water in them anyway though, right?

3.) If he’s acting like his normal self, should I be concerned about dehydration still?  He’s not exhibiting any of the symptoms of dehydraton, other than it appears that he’s not drinking as much as he used to.  I’ve tried adding a little apple juice to his water which he seemed to like the first few times but now could care less about.  He startedusing his  bottle again today too.  Just a little bit of water, but that’s progress, right?

I don’t want to keep hauling him off to the vet and stressing him out as he HATES his carrier (I would too if everytime I was put in that thing I had to go somplace where it smelled funny and some stranger was poking at me!), but I definitely don’t want to ignore something that could grow to be a big problem.

Any advice is definitely appreciated!  Sorry for the lengthy post, this has been a stressful weekend worrying about Heffie.  I know that the neuter surgery is going to keep healthier, happier, and he’ll live longer, but I also can’t help but feel that if I hadn’t done it, he would still be on his normal habits.  

Thanks Everyone!

[RabbitPam]

I would like to reassure you, because he sounds like he is recovering just fine, and you don’t need to worry. In fact, my next suggestion was to add his water bottle back into the mix of options, but you’d already done that and he’d responded by drinking from it.

Changes in color are often a side effect of medications or changes in diet. I would recommend you have him back on a normal and healthy diet now, with good water options. ie, pellets, plenty of regular (not alfalfa) hay, water in bottle and a crock too, if you have one, and lots of fresh, watered veggies. Not as many treats now. A slice of banana or two, OR a slice of apple or two, is enough. Not even necessary daily now that he’s eating. If he eats more hay, which is best for him, he will get more thirsty and drink more water. Both are the best to get his poos back to normal.

If you find that in a couple of days they have gotten smaller or hard, and the color is still odd with that diet, give your vet a call. But I really think that you don’t need another vet visit. He sounds fine, and never, never regret doing this procedure. You have done yourselves a favor and will be healthy and happy together for many years to come.

[Roxygirl]

Hi Pam,

Thank you so much for the reassurance. Heffie does seem to be back on track after taking a look at him this morning. He ate his daily serving of timothy pellets and veggies last night (yay!) and was still munching some orchard grass hay here and there. I’m so glad to see him eating hay as he didn’t really seem too interested in it before. He seems to be “back on the bottle” so to speak 🙂 and using that rather than the dish I had laid out with water for him. I did cut back his fruit last night as he was starting to eat more of his pellets and will continue to limit that now that he seems to be eating much better. Everything seems to be back to normal and he was even binkying around his litterbox and xpen last night, and running circles around my feet! I know the surgery was the right thing to do for both him and us. I have a tendency to really worry about my animals when they seem off and am probably overly vigilant at times. But at least Mr. Heff seems to be back to his silly, mischevious self! Thanks again!

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