Saw my first cecotrope?

[princessbookworm]

Hello everyone!

I’m a relatively new bunny mom who has had my Jake since November. He’s a sweet, free range mini lop who eats good, litters good, and is generally very sweet and tame.

However, I have never seen a cecotrope in real life. I’ve read a lot about them but I had never seen one. I always assumed he ate them right from his bum. Today I saw one? It wasn’t far from his litter box. I picked it up with some cardboard and fed it to him and he most of it then went away. So I put a tiny slice of dried carrot in it and he gobbled it up.

Should I be concerned? He may have had an extra couple treats yesterday (my baby sister was visiting)but he generally gets a healthy diet (I’ll outline it below). He’s also currently molting.

Jake’s Daily Diet:

-unlimited 2nd cut Small Pet Select timothy hay
-a bit of kaytee timothy hay plus in his treat ball
-1/4c Oxbow adult essentials (with just a few pellets of Hartz)
-1 skin and coat hay tab
-unlimited water (spoiled bun has a self-filling dish, a bottle, and a bowl! Haha)
-3-4 leaves of romaine

Jake’s Treats:
-kale
-dried papaya
-dried carrot
-timothy hay cookies
-hay cubes
-banana
-the odd berry (usually when I have some and he jumps on the table and skips away with one haha)
-dried birch leaves
-herbs (basil, cilantro)

Am I just paranoid? I did just recently start putting brown paper on the bottom of the litter (I use a mix of yesterday’s news and carefresh), maybe it threw him off?

Thank you in advance!

[Tgbarber]

Wow, it’s been 4 months and you are just now seeing one? I remember the first time my bun ate one in front of me. Being a dog owner for years, eating poop was a huge problem. Then we googled why is my bunny eating its poop. I then learned about cecotropes. Still grossed out by it, but now i know it’s a good thing. I see them now when I’ve fed Theo too many sweet treats. It seems to me if you overfeed sweet treats or too many pellets, you’ll see excess cecotropes that they haven’t eaten. I have to be careful because he’ll sit on them and then get poopy butt and i do not want to clean his butt.

[Mikey]

If you see one now and then, you dont need to feed it to your bun. Diet changes can cause rabbits to produce more (or less), as you see here with more treats making excess cecals

[sarahthegemini]

The odd cecotrope is fine, but I’m concerned that you’re only feeding romaine for his veggies, is there a reason for this? There’s also a lot of fruit (sugar) that you’re feeding as treats, how often are you giving him the treats?

[princessbookworm]

Thank you guys all so much for the answers! Jake is doing just fine eating, peeing, pooping, and binkying.

Sarah, lend me your ear! I also feed Jake a sprig of kale with his veggies 3-4 times a week. I was originally giving him kale and spinach until someone told me they are both high calcium veggies and shouldn’t be fed daily. My local grocery store doesn’t have dandelion available so last time he got that was when I was able to make it to the other shop Would green leaf be a nice healthy addition to his nightly veg?

[princessbookworm]

P.S. he typically gets 1-2 treats a day depending on size.

For example 1-2 of the following:
-1/2 a timothy cookie
-2 leaves of basil
-1/2 papaya chunk (they’re marketed toward humans so they’re larger than the pet store ones but they’re 100% papaya!)
-1/8 banana
-the odd small, frozen berry he steals
-2-3 very small dried carrot pieces

[sarahthegemini]

Posted By princessbookworm on 3/06/2017 6:26 AM

Thank you guys all so much for the answers! Jake is doing just fine eating, peeing, pooping, and binkying.

Sarah, lend me your ear! I also feed Jake a sprig of kale with his veggies 3-4 times a week. I was originally giving him kale and spinach until someone told me they are both high calcium veggies and shouldn’t be fed daily. My local grocery store doesn’t have dandelion available so last time he got that was when I was able to make it to the other shop Would green leaf be a nice healthy addition to his nightly veg?

Green leaf lettuce? Definitely! They never have that at my supermarket but I’d get it if I could. I tend to feed romaine, Chinese leaf lettuce, coriander, rocket, watercress, pak choi, flat leaf parsley, spring greens, chicory, dill, mint, thyme, curly leaf parsley  (that’s a new addition) I feed kale too, but I change veggies every week so if I get kale I’ll feed it every day for that week and then go a few weeks w/o it. Same goes for the parsley. You could also feed carrot tops, red leaf lettuce, raddish tops, rosemary, sage, basil etc.

[princessbookworm]

Wow! Thank you so much!  And here I thought the only solid “daily veggies” were romaine and dandelion. 

You learn something new every day, hehe.  

I’ll definitely pick up some green and red leaf soon as I know my local store carries it fresh. I’m always so bummed my store doesn’t carry dandelion because Jake really likes it. The produce guy knows me from all my produce searching since I got Jake . 

[Aaron]

Sebastian produces cecals once every few days or weeks. His diet is:
1.Unlimited Timothy hay (Obviously)
2. 1/4 cup of pellets in the morning, and 1/8 cup at night.
3. 1 Homemade Timothy hay cookie
4. 1/2 cup of kale.

Juliet’s diet is the same.

[Aaron]

Sebastian produces cecals once every few days or weeks. His diet is:
1.Unlimited Timothy hay (Obviously)
2. 1/4 cup of pellets in the morning, and 1/8 cup at night.
3. 1 Homemade Timothy hay cookie
4. 1/2 cup of kale.

Juliet’s diet is the same.

[sarahthegemini]

Posted By Aaron on 3/06/2017 10:55 AM

Sebastian produces cecals once every few days or weeks. His diet is:
1.Unlimited Timothy hay (Obviously)
2. 1/4 cup of pellets in the morning, and 1/8 cup at night.
3. 1 Homemade Timothy hay cookie
4. 1/2 cup of kale.

Juliet’s diet is the same.

He should really have a variety of veggies, not just kale. 

[Author]

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