How does a rabbit go to the bathroom?

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Cluckin'Bunny

Cluckin'Bunny

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Hi,

I was wondering how a rabbit goes to the bathroom? I was at my local pet shelter today and it looked like one of the rabbits would poop and then pick up it's poo and chew it then spit it out....but I'm not exactly sure.
Could someone please tell me how rabbits do it? (Step by step would be great.) Also, what 'bedding' should I use in the litter box?
Thanks! I'm trying to learn as much as I can BEFORE I get my rabbit!
Cluckin'Bunny
 
My own bunnies have done that a few times, specially when he leave his droppings on the bed. It’s like he knows he’s not allowed, so he will clean up his mess. But instead he leave it more messy.

Often they won’t eat the normal droppings. But they have another dropping they will eat which we aren’t supposed to see. Those droppings (cecotropes) contain a lot of healthy nutrients which the bunnies need :)

Bunnies will leave droppings often when they eat, a bit like a poop factory when they start eating. At least that what we call them in my home.
 
A rabbit produces two types of pellets - cecal and fecal. The fecal pellets are normal poos that typically look the size and shape of cocoa puffs cereal. They usually don't bother these poos except on rare occasion as you saw.

The cecal pellets (cecotropes) are packed with nutrition and pass through the caecum where digestible fiber is broken down. (Fecal pellets do not pass through this caecum.) These cecal pellets are clustered together like grapes and covered in a thin mucous. The rabbit will eat these directly from their body to reingest all those nutrients.

If a rabbit is very young or is eating too rich of a diet, he may produce too many cecal pellets and leave them on the ground. Normally they are not ever seen. The attached video shows a rabbit eating his cecal pellets (so you can see what we mean when we say they eat them directly from their body and we don't see the cecotropes).

Many of us here on RO like to use wood pellets for litter. These are not the same as wood shavings. The pellets are often topped with hay to encourage bunny to potty in the box as they like to potty while they are grazing. Here's more on litter training and setting up a litter box.

 
Thanks guys!
 
I have only caught Theo eating his cecotropes once, but he has probably before. I personally use pine pellets for the litter and think they work the best! Here is a link to Blue eye's blog about litter training: https://rabbitsindoors.weebly.com/litter-training.html. I used this to train Theo and it worked like a charm. I still use the litter pan set up.
 
Hermelin said:
My own bunnies have done that a few times, specially when he leave his droppings on the bed. It’s like he knows he’s not allowed, so he will clean up his mess. But instead he leave it more messy.

Often they won’t eat the normal droppings. But they have another dropping they will eat which we aren’t supposed to see. Those droppings (cecotropes) contain a lot of healthy nutrients which the bunnies need :)

Bunnies will leave droppings often when they eat, a bit like a poop factory when they start eating. At least that what we call them in my home.
Click to expand...

;D my bun does the same thing to when she poops on the bed. She eats it and leaves a few little crumbs lol
 
Most rabbits only eat their cecotropes in private. It would be kind of weird if they just did it all the time in the open! They just recycle their food and use it again... even though we think it's gross! I have only seen one of my 6 rabbits do this but there are none in the trays so I know they do. it still makes it weird though:rolleyes:
 
I've only seen him do it a few times. :p
 
so then he is comfortable with you! But it can become a problem if he is leaving them all over so look for that. Also, you asked for a step by step so here it goes...
1. rabbits eat there food
2. it gets digested into 2 categories, cecotropes and the poop you see most of the time
3. cecotropes come first, those come out they eat them again or take what they want and spit the rest out
4. the regular poop comes with all the things they don't need
5. they start all over!
 
Oh, and about the chickens, we have the small full-grown breeds which I think are called Bantams. we originally got 20 of them from a friend and now we are down to 2 because of the cold. which breed would mix well with the 2 we have left that are medium-size breeds? we herd that golden comets would be nice but that was from the seller. Any thoughts?
 
Thank you! :)
 
Lol, well isn't that why were here? To learn! :D
 
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