Thoughts please

It has been a long while since I have had a baby bun in the house and I can't remember what is normal. Bo is producing a lot of excess caecotrophes. She doesn't appear to be bloated or anything with it. I am free feeding her pellets at the moment - she has a taste for excel junior - and she gets plenty of ings hay as well as some fibafirst sticks and some excel herbage and timothy hay stuffed in loo rolls to occupy her. She seems to produce mostly cecals during the morning then in the afternoon she does proper lovely golden poos. She does get Pro C in her water as well. Would anyone else be concerned?

Don't quote me, but I think it may be because you are free feeding her the pellets. I was always advised never to give Tigger ad lib pellets when she was a baby.

I wouldn't be *massively* concerned if she is eating plenty of hay and producing good poops too. I'm really not a huge fan of Excel as we definitely saw more sticky bottoms when we were feeding that exclusively. Having said that, all our buns do get some in their mix although less than the SS.

Our fosters are getting a mix of Burgess Junior, Burgess Adult, A&P and SS. We've seen a *few* uneaten caecotrophes but not what I'd call a lot. The babies do eat mounds of hay though.

Found this on the net:

A diet too high in carbohydrates, protein, or sugar can upset the balance of bacteria in the caecum causing the production of too many cecotropes. The rabbit ignores these extra dropping as they contain unneeded nutrients

linky so maybe she is getting too many nutrients from the pellets and it might not hurt to cut her back on them, or perhaps give her a mix of those and an adult food.

Bruce always has problems with dwarf or adult excel but he seems to tolerate mature and light and part of his mix. I opted for excel as it is the most easily available. And I thought the advice was generally to free feed pellets until 6 months.

cheryl'n'bruce'flo wrote:And I thought the advice was generally to free feed pellets until 6 months.

It is, but I would rather a bun was eating the majority of its caecotrophes and plenty of hay than getting its nutrients from a pellet food. I'm not sure of the origin of that advice either, but have heard of plenty of people who did not free feed and ended up with perfectly healthy buns. Humum thinks my reluctance to eat hay has a lot to do with being free-fed when they were desperately trying to keep my weight up. The fosters are being free fed, but she would not hesitate to cut their ration if it seemed to be upsetting the way the gut *should* work. Wild buns don't get pellets after all.

The free feeding advice seems to come form the american house rabbit society and is repeated in The house rabbit handbook by Marinell Harriman.

It also says to feed freely on the packet instructions.

I wouldnt be too concerned if shes doing normal poos too. I've heard lots of people having problems with excel causing excess cecotrophs but I would reduce pellets for a few days and increase hay as others have suggested, this should help. Maybe think about changing to science selective junior but if you do, make sure it's a gradual process.

Is she still being changed over from the muesli mix?

I'd be inclined to try a different food.

She is vitrually there. She favoured the excel so strongly that I have picked out the vile locust bean bits and biscuits etc from the muesli and excel mix which has left her with the seeds and small bits from the muesli in amongst the pellets. She was already over producing cecals on the muesli. I am not able to get hold of any selective until wednesday. I could mix in some of my buns food but it has 2 types of mature food in there which may not be so ideal although it also has excel sensitive and selective adult. And then she goes on saturday. So I have a small window of opportunity.

It's tricky to know what to do for the best, isn't it

But I would not recommend Burgess Excel as a sole pellet food for life. Even if SS is harder to get hold of, I'd be inclined to get her onto it so that she can make the transition to the adult version later.

I agree with Sparky. Science selective is a much better pellet so if you can get her onto it so much the better.

I'd take advice from the UK rabbit specialists before I would
from the USA ones! HRS is good, don't get me wrong, but
there is a lot more research being done on COMPANION RABBIT
nutrition in the UK.

Much of the research on rabbit nutrition in the USA has to do
with rabbits grown for commercial products such as meat and
fur. VERY different nutritional needs.

I gave her just a handful of excel yesterday and then just hay. I have given her a few adult selective pellets today - there were no junior to be had - and she had gobbled them up so will give more this evening. There were certainly a few uneaten caecotrophes around earlier but not as many as yesterday.

That's good news then.

Thank you for all your kind replies. I having been watching him and he is doing healthy poos, and binkying. I think I was just a worried mum. I am sure he is OK now and I will keepyou posted.

Love and hugs

Jo xx