Stringy poop with hair

[Rain]

I think Rain’s molting right now, but its weird. Normally, when a rabbit’s shedding,  you can pull on the fur and it will come out. But with Rain, this time, the fur doesn’t come out when I pull on it. Yet when I brush him, there’s tons of fur coming out. And his water bowl gets tons of strands of hairs every day, even though I change it out two to three times. And his poops (These are normal and round) have strands of hair in them too. This morning, I found a stringy poop. It was bigger than most of his normal poops, and had a “tail” attached to it. It looked like maybe string, carpet, or fur. I also saw him chewing a piece of string this morning, and he always tears at the carpet, so it could be that, or his fur. I can’t hold him, so I can’t put him on a platform and groom him like that. Instead, I groom him on the ground when he’s eating pellets so that he can stay still. I groom him with a metal flea comb that I wove a thick rubber band into at the bottom to make it catch more hairs.  I do it twice daily when he’s molting. Today, there was more hair than usual. The brush was catching huge chunks of fluff, and it kept getting stuck in his fur, even though it’s really smooth most of the time. Rain kept jerking away from me today too. This was on his back by the way. When I felt through the fur, it felt really smooth, with no tangles or anything. He has short fur anyways, so it would be hard for that to happen. Anyways, what can I do to stop so much ingestion of fur? Should I clean his cage more, because fur gets stuck in there too? And clean his water bowl more frequently maybe? I want to stop the stringy poos. I only saw one today, and this is the first time I’ve ever seen one, but I want to prevent any more from coming. 

[Wick & Fable]

It’s good that you’re grooming twice a day during a molt. Despite that frequency there’s obviously a lot of hair still shedding, and that tells you how important it is to do your best to lessen fur consumption! Every clump you get off is one clump less rain will ingest. On one hand, it’s good you see those poops because it means the fur is going through smoothly, rather than accumulating into a fur ball to block his digestion. Seeing them often though may mean you need to adjust how long each grooming period is.

With molting/shedding, I like to do small tugs at various places to see what sections feel like “releasing” that time of the day. A section may not be ready to shed in the morning, but that evening it comes off. After a while, you may begin to recognize what the fur looks like when it’s ready to go. Nowadays I can spot a loose tuft or molting point on Wick from across the room, so I’ll just crawl over to him and pull it off, haha.

Promoting water intake and hay consumption will help ensure ingested fur moves through the body. Freshening water continuously is common to prevent furry water. It’s a hassle, but is sometimes necessary.

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.

[Author]

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