Rabbit has pee all over bum

[miwilk339]

As the title suggests my rabbit has pee all on his feet and bum and I just wanted to know the best way to clean it all off, he recently went in for surgery about a week and a half ago to help resolve his head tilt which I believe is why he hasn’t been cleaning himself as much. I was thinking I could try and clean it with a warm washcloth?

[pinkiemarie]

Poor baby! When cleaning a rabbit you want to do the least invasive and least traumatic thing possible so your idea to try a washcloth first is a good idea. If that doesn’t work, you absolutely don’t want to do a full bath. You can do a butt bath if necessary which is still traumatic in my experience, but better than getting fly strike or another illness from being dirty. How I did our butt bath the one time it was necessary was I took a litter pan and put about an inch of lukewarm water in it and put him in so only his rear end was in the water, then removed him and rubbed the fur as dry as possible with towels. If you end up having to do a butt bath remember that he has downy underfur that is hard to dry and it’s really important for regulating his body temperature so you want to wet as little fur as possible and get it as dry as possible and make sure he has a nice warm area to dry off in. It will take several hours for his fur to fully dry so you’ll want to keep an eye on him during that time.

[DanaNM]

Even if he isn’t cleaning himself, usually they don’t get pee all over themselves unless they sit in a puddle or are having some incontenence issues. Do you know what the cause of the head tilt was? I ask because urinary symtoms and head tilt can be caused by E cuniculi. Does he seem to be having issues with making it to his litter box or leaking urine, etc?

And if it’s just pee one time, I don’t know that a bum bath is really necessary, I would just dry him off and keep him clean moving forward. But if he is really soaked, a bum rinse could be a good idea. Urine scald is more of an issue with chronic urine contact. If he is having incontinence issues, puppy pee pads can help but you’ll want to figure out why this is happening.

. . . 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.  

[miwilk339]

Thank you for the tips!! Hopefully I won’t have to do a bath and the washcloth will work but thank you for letting me know how to do one if it comes to it!

[miwilk339]

It could be from him sitting in a puddle, about a month and a half ago I had finished bonding him with his friend and so they both will sometimes pee outside of the litter box which I’m hoping will resolve for them with time since they were both trained pretty well before bonding. The vets think it was caused by ear infections because Thor has pasturella so they removed part of his ear canal to stop the tilt from progressing which is why I was thinking he may not be cleaning himself because of the pain, before surgery he never had problems with a wet bum, usually just very minor staining on his paws but that was very unnoticeable. Thor also has temporary partial facial paralysis from the surgery which will hopefully go away soon which could be another reason.

[Cinnimon&Ollie]

Also if the washcloth doesn’t work you could try cutting some of the fur off, I did this with one of my bunnies because I knew water wouldn’t be a good option for her… she freaks out if she is even a little bit wet. You can’t cut too much off though.

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