Bew and cecals

[Hazel]

I've been finding big clumps of cecals around Bew's cage. About once a day she has these. Should I be worried about this? I mean don't they produce them multiple times a day? So maybe she's getting some... I don't know...

Any tips would be highly appreciated though. She sits in the cecals too, so they get on her butt(just 1 or 2) and she HATES when I clean them off..

 

[Hazel]

Anyone? I'm worried about her.

 

[naturestee]

More info please? What does she eat, how much and how often? That's usually the cause. Also, how old is she and is she overweight at all? If she can't move as well from obesity or arthritis she might have trouble reaching all of her cecals. But normally it's just a symptom of a too-rich diet.

 

[AngelnSnuffy]

Hey hon!

Sorry no one's gotten back to you yet, I'm sure somone will soon. In the meantime, was her food changed when you brought her home? What kind of pellets is she getting? Is she adapting well does it seem? If you're seeing it once a day, probably ok, might be the change or something to do with the food, too much protein maybe. I wouldn't worry, we'll just try to help you define the culprit.

 

[AngelnSnuffy]

We posted at the same time Naturestee.

 

[Hazel]

Well I just got her the other day(Sunday). She was on some kind of Kaytee special diet w/e, so I bought a small bag so I could slowly bring her over. I decided not to start the switch yet because I wanted her to get adjusted. It's just a regular pellet though, no "treats" or anything in it. She gets 1/4 a cup a day about, maybe up to 1/3.

She has tons of timorthy hay, I didn't ask if they had her on alfalfa before, but since the Petco brand is timothy, I'm assuming she had timothy.

She's 9 mos. I was worried about her being overweight, but Peg said the pics didn't seem like she was too heavy. We haven't been to the vet yet, but she'll be going when I take Hazel and Flopsy in to be spayed. Here's a few pics:

As for settling in, she seems to be doing really well. She gets free time every day, and with the way she's going, she might become a permanent free bunny. She doesn't chew anything but her chew toys, she enjoys playing, she's pretty good with her litterbox, and she plays adorable games when she's out. Last night I was in the bathtub and I left the door open because she was out. She kept coming and peeking aqround the door until I would say "Hi Bew!" and then she'd binky off. It was sooo cute.

She comes up for grooming, she grooms you EVERYWHERE (my face can attest to that, haha) and she LOVES being able to run around. She grooms a lot and SEEMS to be able to reach that area but...

Is there anything I need to do with her nutrition if she's not getting her cecals?

 

[MsBinky]

She does strike me as being overweight. She seems to have a roll there near her butt. Lol. How much food is she getting? I can imagine that things will settle soon since now she has plenty of time to run around. You could probably cut back on pellets and keep her mainly on hay and fresh veggies. Seriously though, it doesn't look like she is badl overweight so I am sure things will fall into place soon :rose:

 

[Hazel]

Yeah, we just got her, and when I brought her home I compared her to Flopsy who is about the same age and I was like... hrmmmmm a little heavy there maybe. But it's also really hard to tell because she is MAJORLY fluffy. I mean your hands sink into her fur, haha. But the one thing that made me think she might really be overweight is that her "soft spot" behind her head isn't really an indent... which it is for my other 2 and all other buns I've handled.

I can totally see how she got overweight though. It looked like she had unlimited pellets and she never got to run around from her small cage, She was SOOOOOOO excited the first time I put her down in the living room. She kind of looked at me like "really? I can actually run and binky??" And then she took off. I think now that she's finally having an area to run around in she should hopefully lose the weight quickly. She getsHOURS of free time a day to run around.

I've been hesitant to give her fresh veggies. I'm not sure if they gave them veggies at the store and I don't want her to have even MORE problems from a weird diet switch. She gets TONS of hay though and only a little serving of pellets every day.

Poor Bew, chubby and cecal problems, She's such a sweetie though. She'll come up to you and groom you just to say HI! You can tell she's sooo grateful to have a forever home, it makes me so happy I finally gave in and got her,

 

[AngelnSnuffy]

Aw, great to hear she's so happy when running about. How is the change in diet seem to be going? You're doing the right thing with tons of hay and limited pellets though:thumbup.

You could wait a few more days and see if the poos come to be normal and add in some veggies, like Parsley and see how just a few of those goes.

Keep us posted!

 

[Marietta]

Hazel. Bew is a lovely bun!

This kind of clustered cecals are, indeed, a result of a high protein diet or else too much feed. Bew looks a bit overweight, not too much though, which means that, as AngelnSnuffy correctly suggested, if you provide mainly unlimited hay (which has much-much less calories than pellets) and a restricted amount of pellets (try a bit less than 1/4 of a meazure cup, divided in 2 doses, 1 in the morning and 1 in the evening), plus lots of running around to burn some calories, Bew will be back in normal weight in no time.

Marietta