Poopy butt with hollands

[Flashy]

That's great fancy Maybe once they have adjusted to this amount see if cutting back anymore helps.

I have one girl who gets excess cecals if she has like a pellets or two too many, and she can only cope with about 20 pellets a day. It's much less than I give most of my buns but works for her and keeps her healthy. Maybe Z just needs less than average.

 

[DeniseJP]

Flashy wrote:

It may be the free feeding. When I give some of mine more than a tiny amount of pellets they get excess cecals EVERYwhere. thankfully theirs don't stick to them, but that could be your problem. The free feeding pellets may also account for lack of hay consumption, but it might also be worth getting that bun checked out for dental problems in case they are the reason he eats less hay.

I agree with also deworming too.

Something else to think about is the risk of flystrike. Over here we can use rearguard to help protect vculnerable bunnies but not sure if you have that over there. Might be worth looking into.

 

[DeniseJP]

Flashy wrote:

It may be the free feeding. When I give some of mine more than a tiny amount of pellets they get excess cecals EVERYwhere. thankfully theirs don't stick to them, but that could be your problem. The free feeding pellets may also account for lack of hay consumption, but it might also be worth getting that bun checked out for dental problems in case they are the reason he eats less hay.

I agree with also deworming too.

Something else to think about is the risk of flystrike. Over here we can use rearguard to help protect vculnerable bunnies but not sure if you have that over there. Might be worth looking into.

 

[DeniseJP]

My post did not come up...

I no longer free feed pellets (I use Bunny 16 pellets by Blue Seal mixed with a bit of race horse oats) and use a lot more hay and fresh grass. I have had Holland kits get poopy butts before but Juno's kits are doing well and their backsides are clear of poops. They love the fresh grass - Juno got it during pregnancy and during nursing and the kits love the grass supplement and the hay and are doing well on it.



Denise

 

[ratmom]

Flashy wrote:

Any chance he does have some sort of issue (injury? deformity? etc) that is causing this?

How is his movement? How are his back legs? Does he have good power in them? can he jump? Stretch out his back legs to clean them?

Not that I know of, but we wouldn't know medically unless we get a xray done on him. His movement seems fine he runs all over the house, even on tile which he loves. When he sits on his butt he can stretch his legs to clean them if that's what you mean.

 

[ratmom]

I have been reducing the pellets also and eventually will move them to the timothy pellets,but I think wilbur is on to me and knows there is timothy in there. They both hardly eat hay so I'm not sure if maybe the humidity is messing with the hay or it's the pellets.

 

[ratmom]

Sorry for all the posts, but I was watching him more and he just isn't flexible enough to reach down there. Could quite possibly be a deformity I don't know.

 

[tonyshuman]

A spinal deformity would definitely cause that. Does his back look really arched?

 

[ratmom]

He doesn't seem like he has a weird arch to his back. I did buy some thinning shears so I'm going to try and thin his hair out on his butt and surrounding area. Trying some more new hay and bought some timothy fm brown tidbits. He seems to like the tidbits so maybe I can find a bigger bag for him somewhere.

 

[tonyshuman]

That sounds good. Are the tidbits a type of hay, like a hay cube?

 

[ratmom]

tonyshuman wrote:

That sounds good. Are the tidbits a type of hay, like a hay cube?

They are 100% timothy hay and they don't look squashed like the cubes. We weren't sure which one to try so we went with this.

 

[tonyshuman]

Oh ok. I say, any way he will eat it is good! Long strands of hay are really good, but if they won't eat that, shorter strands are good.

 

[JadeIcing]

tonyshuman wrote:

I have a holland mix, and I agree that it's not normal for any bunny. I don't like the small world mix, especially for adult bunnies, as it has too much protein, and not enough fiber. I think your bunny needs a higher quality pellet, probably a smaller ration of it (I feed 1/16 cup to my Holland each day). Also, more hay. I would also give a probiotic like Bene-Bac or Probios to get the GI tract working correctly again.

I have a holland that I have to monitor very closely when it comes to pellets. Also know several that have the same issues. We all monitor pellets big time.


angieluv wrote:

I have yet to know whether this is good or bad feed as on one site it was praised. Just lower the amount for now and it will help ; it doesn't sound bad with the ingredients listed

more feedback will probably come after this holiday weekend

If a bun comes in with it to the rescue it is tossed ASAP. Lots of runs, mushy poop, coat condition etc.

 

[ratmom]

They both seem to like them. I'm still pushing the hay and I'm not giving up lol.

 

[ratmom]

JadeIcing wrote

I have a holland that I have to monitor very closely when it comes to pellets. Also know several that have the same issues. We all monitor pellets big time.

What kind of pellets do you feed your holland?

 

[JadeIcing]

ratmom wrote:

JadeIcing wrote

I have a holland that I have to monitor very closely when it comes to pellets. Also know several that have the same issues. We all monitor pellets big time.

What kind of pellets do you feed your holland?

We feed 3 different kinds (Blue Seal 16-SweetMeadow-Purina Green Bag). We rotate them each time we buy. We seem to have it under control now.

 

[ratmom]

I tried the purina green bag and it did the same to him, I will try the others though. I gave him a bath last night, did a lot of trimming and not 24 hours mushy poop again sigh this poor bunny.

 

[JadeIcing]

I would scale back pellets big time but slowly. Slowly increase to see what he can handle. Each bunny is different on what they can handle.

 

[tonyshuman]

Yeah, 1/4c per 5lbs is a good amount to try. My guys need to have less than that or they get uneaten cecals, but it's a good goal to reduce his pellets to that amount.

 

[jordiwes]

FWIW, I have a 4 year old holland with a poopy butt who's had it for her entire life. We feed her 1/4 cup of Oxbow Bunny Basics T every day, and she eats LOTS of timothy hay.

We added greens, cut out greens, doesn't seem to make a difference.

She is very mobile, so don't know why she just doesn't clean her butt. Her husbun has the same diet with no poopy problems whatsoever.

Every week, we catch her, flip her, and trim her butt hair. Keeps things under control. when we let it go a couple of months, we have to take her to the vet for a shave.