Skylar&bean
New Member
Hi! I’m a 22 year old bunny mom to my entire WORLD- Bean. He’s a 2 year old holland lop. I’ve owned rabbits since I was 12 and I’ve never loved any animal as intensely as I love my baby Beanie!! He is my whole life and Im tearing up just thinking of my love for him.
I’ll start with the problem... which is going to sound weird and almost humorous to some people but it’s extremely concerning and I don’t know how this is happening. For the past few months, my bunny started pooping big, wet “cecotropes” which often lead to the whole “poopy butt” for which I’d give him very light baths with rabbit shampoo (he’s very good about baths and is not phased at all as long as I’m the one cleaning him lol) but about a week and a half ago, these poops have been HUGE, like my family thought it was from our cat.
One night I went to cuddle with Bean and just being a few feet away from him I knew he had really bad poopy butt because of how terrible it smelled. Well I picked him up, and there was a huge, round rock looking poop attached to his butt. I’d compare this to the size of a tennis ball or a pool ball. It was hardened on the outside of it, so I thought it would be easy to clean off. When I started gently pulling it apart with a paper towel, there was a yellowish, mushy poop on the INSIDE of this hardened shell. So it was like he was pooping into a sack almost.
I know that that’s all very graphic but I’ve looked this up all over the internet and I haven’t seen anyone mention anything like this. That was about a week and a half ago, so I started making change to his diet and leaving him in his cage for the majority of the day (he’s litter trained, so he comes out during the day) it was all good until today when he had another one of these big poop sacks stuck to him. I have to literally hold my breath when I’m cleaning this off of him because of how bad it stinks.
I took a sample of it to bring to the vet because that is my next step as expensive as it is.
A couple things to add:
- the past 2-3 days I’ve started letting him out of his cage all day again, and then today he had the second big poop that was just like the first.
- he has not been acting odd or uncomfortable or aggressive in any way, he’s been his normal happy self from as far as I can tell. Still cuddly and doing his hops. But he does sleep a lot.
- he still eats plenty, I can’t tell if he’s drinking enough because he switches between his water bowl and water bottle.
- the reason for keeping him in his cage longer as a solution is because he chews a LOT even though I give him SOOO many chew treats/toys. We live in a somewhat bigger house so he could be going off and chewing something I haven’t found yet, but for the most part he hangs out near everyone where we can see him. Sometimes he goes in another room that we less frequent. He’s chewed a lot of stuff in the past and even though I took it out of his reach or patched/covered it up, I never saw any health issues from it.
-I recently changed his pellets to a pellet nutrition mix, and the large poops started happening around that time, I’m currently switching him back to his normal pellets without the grains/seeds.
- he did USED to get treats like a piece of popcorn or cracker. I realized that this is not good for him as much as he loves it and felt terrible I ever let him try people food, especially because I love him so much and just want to make him happy. But I stopped, however I guess my dad has been giving him a piece of cracker in the mornings when he let him out of his cage which I didn’t know because my dad wakes up much earlier than me. When I found out, I’d constantly tell him to stop until we had a HUGE fight about it, and he finally stopped from what I understand.
- each night currently, he gets a plate full of pellets, a few pieces of spinach and arugula, a yogurt drop and some hay. That usually lasts him until the following evening.
There’s everything I could think of, and I’m hoping not to get attacked because I understand this is a RABBIT only forum so there are probably owners on here who are much more educated than me even though I’ve owned rabbits for years, all i ask is that you be informative! Bean is my whole life and I’ve never loved an animal this much ever. I think I love him more than most people in my life as well. I understand giving him people food was so wrong which is why I’ve stopped giving him any of it because I want him to be around for as long as possible. I couldn’t imagine life without him.
If you want to see more of his personality, here’s a cute video I made of him and put on YouTube from awhile back,
That video will help you understand how sweet and loving he is as well. Which is why it’s hard to tell when something’s wrong, because he’s always so happy and would never/has never been aggressive a day in his life, he wouldn’t hurt a fly.
If anyone has ever heard of this or seen it before, I’m asking for any advice/solutions, anything!!!! I love him so much and I know this is affecting him regardless.
I’m so sorry for making this SO long...if you’ve read all of it I thank you from the bottom of my heart!!
THANK YOU!!!!!
I’ll start with the problem... which is going to sound weird and almost humorous to some people but it’s extremely concerning and I don’t know how this is happening. For the past few months, my bunny started pooping big, wet “cecotropes” which often lead to the whole “poopy butt” for which I’d give him very light baths with rabbit shampoo (he’s very good about baths and is not phased at all as long as I’m the one cleaning him lol) but about a week and a half ago, these poops have been HUGE, like my family thought it was from our cat.
One night I went to cuddle with Bean and just being a few feet away from him I knew he had really bad poopy butt because of how terrible it smelled. Well I picked him up, and there was a huge, round rock looking poop attached to his butt. I’d compare this to the size of a tennis ball or a pool ball. It was hardened on the outside of it, so I thought it would be easy to clean off. When I started gently pulling it apart with a paper towel, there was a yellowish, mushy poop on the INSIDE of this hardened shell. So it was like he was pooping into a sack almost.
I know that that’s all very graphic but I’ve looked this up all over the internet and I haven’t seen anyone mention anything like this. That was about a week and a half ago, so I started making change to his diet and leaving him in his cage for the majority of the day (he’s litter trained, so he comes out during the day) it was all good until today when he had another one of these big poop sacks stuck to him. I have to literally hold my breath when I’m cleaning this off of him because of how bad it stinks.
I took a sample of it to bring to the vet because that is my next step as expensive as it is.
A couple things to add:
- the past 2-3 days I’ve started letting him out of his cage all day again, and then today he had the second big poop that was just like the first.
- he has not been acting odd or uncomfortable or aggressive in any way, he’s been his normal happy self from as far as I can tell. Still cuddly and doing his hops. But he does sleep a lot.
- he still eats plenty, I can’t tell if he’s drinking enough because he switches between his water bowl and water bottle.
- the reason for keeping him in his cage longer as a solution is because he chews a LOT even though I give him SOOO many chew treats/toys. We live in a somewhat bigger house so he could be going off and chewing something I haven’t found yet, but for the most part he hangs out near everyone where we can see him. Sometimes he goes in another room that we less frequent. He’s chewed a lot of stuff in the past and even though I took it out of his reach or patched/covered it up, I never saw any health issues from it.
-I recently changed his pellets to a pellet nutrition mix, and the large poops started happening around that time, I’m currently switching him back to his normal pellets without the grains/seeds.
- he did USED to get treats like a piece of popcorn or cracker. I realized that this is not good for him as much as he loves it and felt terrible I ever let him try people food, especially because I love him so much and just want to make him happy. But I stopped, however I guess my dad has been giving him a piece of cracker in the mornings when he let him out of his cage which I didn’t know because my dad wakes up much earlier than me. When I found out, I’d constantly tell him to stop until we had a HUGE fight about it, and he finally stopped from what I understand.
- each night currently, he gets a plate full of pellets, a few pieces of spinach and arugula, a yogurt drop and some hay. That usually lasts him until the following evening.
There’s everything I could think of, and I’m hoping not to get attacked because I understand this is a RABBIT only forum so there are probably owners on here who are much more educated than me even though I’ve owned rabbits for years, all i ask is that you be informative! Bean is my whole life and I’ve never loved an animal this much ever. I think I love him more than most people in my life as well. I understand giving him people food was so wrong which is why I’ve stopped giving him any of it because I want him to be around for as long as possible. I couldn’t imagine life without him.
If you want to see more of his personality, here’s a cute video I made of him and put on YouTube from awhile back,
That video will help you understand how sweet and loving he is as well. Which is why it’s hard to tell when something’s wrong, because he’s always so happy and would never/has never been aggressive a day in his life, he wouldn’t hurt a fly.
If anyone has ever heard of this or seen it before, I’m asking for any advice/solutions, anything!!!! I love him so much and I know this is affecting him regardless.
I’m so sorry for making this SO long...if you’ve read all of it I thank you from the bottom of my heart!!
THANK YOU!!!!!
