Pumpkin’s Poopy Butt

[Little Lion Head]

Help!

Pumpkin has some serious poopy butt happening. I haven’t noticed any mushy poops at all, but her whole behind is basically smeared with dried poop. It’s actually been this way for awhile, but the area has been getting bigger and bigger and bigger.

Honestly, I think she quit grooming herself when we got Rocky b/c he does it all for her!

My question is: What is the best way to clean her up? We tried a warm, damp washcloth and it didn’t do anything! Should we do a butt bath? Any pointers on how to go about it? Can we cut out the poop-filled hair?

Ok, you know it’s bad when my husband told me to get on Binky Bunny and ask for help!

[LBJ10]

Could you have the vet do a sanitary shave? At least until you can sort out the cause of the problem.

[Little Lion Head]

Besides a veggie that may not have agreed with her what other causes could it be?

[LBJ10]

I suppose it depends on if this is a one-time thing or not. Poopy butt can be the result of diet issues, but it can also be caused by weight or dental issues.

http://www.examiner.com/article/poopy-butt-rabbits-what-it-is-and-what-to-do-for-it

[JackRabbit]

Moshi is famous for that, but his is usually just a couple of dried blobs with smears on the fleece where he sleeps. We use unscented baby wipes (Target brand in the purple package) — to rub the poop spots between your fingers, followed by a wipe with a wet washcloth. Anything left gets snipped out carefully. Moshi tries to clean himself and usually does a good job, but hardened blobs are sometimes too much for him to take carevof. A sanitary shave by the vet/vet tech is a good idea though, especially with longer butt fur. It doesn’t even need to be a “shave”, but more of a “bikini trim”. Marlee had this done for mats, and the fur in that area was left about a third of an inch long (now she gets brushed under there nightly).

It sounds like a veggie issue, and if that’s the case, it can be a few days of poopy butt. Is she eating alot more salad since you have your garden or just more variety? If she’s eating a larger volume, try cutting back a bit quantitywise. If the quantity is the same as always, you might eliminate anything that she hasn’t always had and try adding the items back one at a time (give the new item at least 3 or 4 days to see if poopy butt shows up before adding another new item back). Moshi’s veggie issues are quantity plus eating too fast so we have to give him a smaller salad and hand feed him to slow him down.

[Little Lion Head]

It’s been like this for a couple of months actually…when I first noticed it I figured she would clean herself up b/c it was a small area. Every now and then I pick her up and look at her “area” out of habit from when she had syphillis. It was the other day that I noticed the small area of became quite large. There aren’t any clumps of poop, just smeared dried poop all over.

The only new veggie she has had is radish leaves and I haven’t seen any mushy poops since introducing it and the the poopy butt has been around longer than radish leaves. I did tell Jared I have probably been feeding a lot of veggies b/c we have so much. So I’m thinking it’s either that or possibly a dental issue. The vet told us back in November that a couple of teeth were pretty pointy. We cut down on hay and in a few months the vet said her teeth were fine.

Thank you for the article LBJ! Very helpful!!!

The plan: butt bath today, cut back on veggies…see if it helps. If not, to the vet we go!

[Little Lion Head]

We went for a butt bath today. Just put a couple of inches of warm water in the sink. Pumpkin behaved so well–probably because she was terrified. She let me hold her butt in the water while the rest of her hovered over. It definitely got a lot of the poopy brown color off, but there is a chunk of her hair that is just wadded up and hard, almost like a mat? Probably because of how long the poopy butt has been going on? Jared lightly tried to comb it and got a few chunks off. This seems to be the only problem area now. Is it safe to cut out the mat? Or do I need to leave that to the vet?

[JackRabbit]

Depends on how close it is to her skin. If you can hold it up and safely trim that blob/mat off without getting near her skin you should be ok. With Moshi’s stuck on poop, we have been lucky to have about 1/2 inch (maybe a touch less) of fur between the skin and blob. Any less and I would leave it to the vet. Marlee’s mats were right up to her skin when I found them so that was a definite for the vet.

[LBJ10]

Glad the article helped.

I agree with JR, if it isn’t right up against the skin then it should be fine to cut.

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