really small droppings and won’t eat breakfast

[cosmoluna]

Hello everyone.

I posted a thread yesterday asking about which digestive supplements might help my bunnies but got no answers. Today has been about the same as yesterday, with my buns both eating hay and greens. They will eat compressed hay bales, oxbow digestive health supplement, and greens, but somehow both of my rabbits have very small droppings.

Tonight I gave Mo a belly rub which he seemed to enjoy, and seemed to help a bit. I noticed more poop in the litter box after i had rubbed his belly.

However, they don’t want to eat their greens in the morning anymore. They will eat hay, herbs, and the oxbow supplement, but won’t eat their usual breakfast until later in the day. Paired with the small droppings, this really concerns me! They are both drinking water, but less than usual. I have stopped giving them any fruit as treats for the past 2 days as well and i have focused on getting them to eat more hay.

No rabbit vets are open after hours in my area, so I am very concerned and looking for some clarity. Should I be panicking? Is there anything I can do to help them? Thanks!

 

[Abi :)]

What veggies are you feeding your bun? Here is a link that may help-
http://www.bunssb.org/bunnies/guide-bunny-poops/

 

[Apollo’s Slave]

It sounds like one or both of them are starting to get Gi Stasis. Baby gas drops might help so I recommend buying those. Give three doses of 1ml baby gas drops, one hour apart.
Encourage the bunnies to eat lots of hay, by topping it up every few hours. Get them to run around as that will help if they have gas.

Getting to a vet will be your best option though.

 

[zuppa]

Hello everyone.

I posted a thread yesterday asking about which digestive supplements might help my bunnies but got no answers. Today has been about the same as yesterday, with my buns both eating hay and greens. They will eat compressed hay bales, oxbow digestive health supplement, and greens, but somehow both of my rabbits have very small droppings.

Tonight I gave Mo a belly rub which he seemed to enjoy, and seemed to help a bit. I noticed more poop in the litter box after i had rubbed his belly.

However, they don’t want to eat their greens in the morning anymore. They will eat hay, herbs, and the oxbow supplement, but won’t eat their usual breakfast until later in the day. Paired with the small droppings, this really concerns me! They are both drinking water, but less than usual. I have stopped giving them any fruit as treats for the past 2 days as well and i have focused on getting them to eat more hay.

No rabbit vets are open after hours in my area, so I am very concerned and looking for some clarity. Should I be panicking? Is there anything I can do to help them? Thanks!

Hi, can you post some pics of the droppings, also it would be best to keep all information in one thread since there are many threads posted daily, including off-top threads pushing other threads from the news corner so people simply can't see all threads and so are not familiar with your problems described in your other threads.

It can be GI stasis or can be just heat and rabbits don't drink much and not active when it is very hot, or can be something else. When they drink less their droppings are smaller in size because there's less water in them. I can't really tell more without seeing the droppings. What is interesting that if they are in GI stasis both same time there must be something with their diet because of they have same symptoms same time, I would be interested to see droppings close-up and if possible their normal droppings to compare, to see if they are just smaller than usual or are misshaped or have mucus on them or connected or mushy etc.

 

[zuppa]

I will just repost your yesterday's question here so we have it all in the same thread

Hi everyone!

For the past few days my buns have both randomly had very small droppings and don’t want to eat much early in the mornings. They eat hay and fresh veggies in the afternoon and evening perfectly fine, and are drinking water. They also act very normal and have been more active recently.

I’ve given them some compressed hay bales along with a variety of hays to snack on for fiber, and some wet veggies in the morning and night. They currently get an Oxbow digestive support tablet every morning, but I was wondering which digestive supplements or remedies could help get my buns tummies back to normal! Any recommendations are very appreciated!

So I understand that they have unlimited grass hay (not familiar with what compressed hay bales means), wet vegetables and digestive support tablets.

May I ask why they need these tablets and how long they use them?
Also what else do you feed them, are they getting pellets as well? What brand/name/ingredients if so?
What vegetables they have usually and recently? And what herbs? Any treats? What type of hay they have, timothy, meadow, orchard, alfalfa etc?
How old are your rabbits and how long are they with you? Any recent changes in their diet?

 

[cosmoluna]

I will just repost your yesterday's question here so we have it all in the same thread

So I understand that they have unlimited grass hay (not familiar with what compressed hay bales means), wet vegetables and digestive support tablets.

May I ask why they need these tablets and how long they use them?
Also what else do you feed them, are they getting pellets as well? What brand/name/ingredients if so?
What vegetables they have usually and recently? And what herbs? Any treats? What type of hay they have, timothy, meadow, orchard, alfalfa etc?
How old are your rabbits and how long are they with you? Any recent changes in their diet?

First off: yes they have unlimited timothy hay at all times! they also have orchard hay mixed in. They get 100% timothy hay pellets to snack ok as well. Secondly: I bought the compressed hay bails as a way to get them to eat more hay, they’re just hay that is wound tightly into a ball that is fun for them to chew.

The buns are both a year old, and have been with me since they were 8 weeks old. The only thing that I think might have caused a tummy upset is that my family loves to feed them dried banana chips as a treat after they have their salad in the evening.

They get the digestive tablet purely as a preventative measure. My boy bun tends to shed a lot and it has helped keep his tummy clearer and manage his stress a little more. They get a plate of salad every morning and night since they dont get any sort of pellet mix. usually things like romaine, green leaf lettuce, kale, dandelion, chard, red leaf lettuce, butter lettuce, parsley, mint, or celery tops.

The attached photo is one if the smaller droppings, I couldn’t find any regular sized ones since i’ve changed their box in order to monitor their poops! (^:

 

[cosmoluna]

It sounds like one or both of them are starting to get Gi Stasis. Baby gas drops might help so I recommend buying those. Give three doses of 1ml baby gas drops, one hour apart.
Encourage the bunnies to eat lots of hay, by topping it up every few hours. Get them to run around as that will help if they have gas.

Getting to a vet will be your best option though.

Yes! I got them some simethicone drops this morning but I could only find one brand, called Little Remedies. I don’t know if this brand is bunny safe so i decided to hold off on the simethicone until I knew for sure. Do you know if this brand is safe?

 

[cosmoluna]

also, the herbs they have had are the Rosewood Naturals ‘Natures Salad’ mix, i’ve been sprinkling that on their hay to entice them to eat it. So far, they have been eating a lot more hay and the size of their droppings have both improved which is a relief! They’re both hopping around like normal and I even caught a binky from luna an hour or so ago! Just really confused on why the droppings got so small

 

[cosmoluna]

What veggies are you feeding your bun? Here is a link that may help-
http://www.bunssb.org/bunnies/guide-bunny-poops/

Thank you for the article! They had been eating romaine, baby salad mix, kale, green leaf lettuce, red leaf, and dandelion at the beggining of this ordeal. i usually only feed 2 types of lettuce at a time so all of the different types are just for variety so that they will be encouraged to eat in the mornings!

 

[zuppa]

From that one poo honestly I don't see anything wrong with it if it's just a bit smaller because they don't drink much I wouldn't really worry much, especially if they are active, poop well and doing their binkies.
Any gas drops suitable for babies would work for the rabbits I imagine. You can also make your own gripe water by brewing some fennel or dill seeds, just like tea, filter seeds of course and give at room temperature.

As for dried banana I imagine it has more sugar than fresh banana. I would rarely feed bananas to my rabbits simply I rarely buy bananas not a fan myself, but if i do it's an inch of banana max once or twice a week, so maybe every evening would be a bit too fat?

 

[cosmoluna]

From that one poo honestly I don't see anything wrong with it if it's just a bit smaller because they don't drink much I wouldn't really worry much, especially if they are active, poop well and doing their binkies.
Any gas drops suitable for babies would work for the rabbits I imagine.

As for dried banana I imagine it has more sugar than fresh banana. I would rarely feed bananas to my rabbits simply I rarely buy bananas not a fan myself, but if i do it's an inch of banana max once or twice a week, so maybe every evening would be a bit too fat?

Hah yes I have given my family a stern talking to about the excessive banana feeding! They adore banana chips so my family comes into their room and feeds them those way too often.. The dropping in the photo is actually much bigger than they were, but I was pleasantly surprised to find that they have almost doubled in size since I gave them tummy rubs. I’m very cautious with what I feed them, so I was really concerned/confused as to why they both had the same issues at the same time.

 

[zuppa]

Hah yes I have given my family a stern talking to about the excessive banana feeding! They adore banana chips so my family comes into their room and feeds them those way too often.. The dropping in the photo is actually much bigger than they were, but I was pleasantly surprised to find that they have almost doubled in size since I gave them tummy rubs. I’m very cautious with what I feed them, so I was really concerned/confused as to why they both had the same issues at the same time.

Tummy rubs are great! Even if they are fine they love tummy massage. There was a video somewhere if you use search it was posted many times in this forum. I hold them on my lap not using table and do it a bit differently but they all love it and also if you make them moving more it also helps with moving their guts.

 

[cosmoluna]

I’ll probably start massaging them more often then! My buns sadly dont like to be picked up or held on my lap so i just wait until they flop lol. I thought he would hate it but he started clicking his teeth and closing his eyes so i knew he was loving it! his tummy did feel a little bit harder/rounder, but after rubbing his tummy he felt much softer and ran to eat more hay.

 

[zuppa]

I’ll probably start massaging them more often then! My buns sadly dont like to be picked up or held on my lap so i just wait until they flop lol. I thought he would hate it but he started clicking his teeth and closing his eyes so i knew he was loving it! his tummy did feel a little bit harder/rounder, but after rubbing his tummy he felt much softer and ran to eat more hay.

Yeah that's every time after tummy massage their tummy feels much softer. I personally think that not all my rabbits liked to be picked up and held on my lap, some were pretty bad even aggressive, but now they are all loving being on my lap, even Smokey, who's still gets defensive when picked up but we keep working on it. So you can train them and belly massage will definitely help you.

 

[Lauren Kiernan]

Mine loves the Sherwood brand digestive support tablets. We offer them as treats during molting or any time I see signs of less poop activity.

 

[Apollo’s Slave]

Yes! I got them some simethicone drops this morning but I could only find one brand, called Little Remedies. I don’t know if this brand is bunny safe so i decided to hold off on the simethicone until I knew for sure. Do you know if this brand is safe?

That brands seems to be safe. Hopefully it is just the heat and they feel better soon. Gas drops are good to have on hand just in case though

 

[cosmoluna]

Mine loves the Sherwood brand digestive support tablets. We offer them as treats during molting or any time I see signs of less poop activity.

Perfect! I havent seen those ones before so I will look for them online! Thank you so much for the suggestion!

 

[cosmoluna]

That brands seems to be safe. Hopefully it is just the heat and they feel better soon. Gas drops are good to have on hand just in case though

Yeah I’m going to run the Air conditioning today and see if anything improves in the day time! They eat perfectly fine in the evening but morning time is a struggle!

 

[cosmoluna]

Yeah that's every time after tummy massage their tummy feels much softer. I personally think that not all my rabbits liked to be picked up and held on my lap, some were pretty bad even aggressive, but now they are all loving being on my lap, even Smokey, who's still gets defensive when picked up but we keep working on it. So you can train them and belly massage will definitely help you.

Hopefully I can get them to tolerate it at the least, I don’t pick them up at all because they get so scared! It definitely makes things a hassle in times like this where it could potentially be very serious

 

[Lauren Kiernan]

Perfect! I havent seen those ones before so I will look for them online! Thank you so much for the suggestion!

Not cheap but seem to work. They carry them on Amazon