My rabbit has soft poops

Hi everyone I am new to the forum,

I am just wondering, my 4 month old rabbit has some soft stools, round and like the normal poops but soft, is he ill? I know to keep an eye on the poops, he is doing normal ones too but the odd 4 or so from yesterday soft ones. I have introduced him to readigrass but only small pinches here and there 2 days ago, could it be that? I know to go slowly when introducing new things. He is on western Timothy hay and unlimited junior excel pellets and has been since I got him when I gradually changed him from rabbit royale. He is great with this food and hay so thinking it could be that or is it with the weather being hot.? I had a fan on past 2 days facing his room to keep it cool and today put up some fly mesh at the window so I could open it properly without the nasty blue bottles etc flying in and laying their eggs on him.

So should I be concerned or just keep checking the poop?

The soft poos are excess cecal poos - the poo that the buns reingest to get the most out of it. With a healthy diet you should not see any of these poos and the poo that you will see will be large golden and crumbly. Soft poos are a sign of a diet that is too rich.

My advice would be to stop the unlimited element of his pellets. Buns need hay, hay and more hay really. Even when growing they don't need loads of pellets. The idea of 'growing' pellets always seems to me to be more of a throw back to meat rabbit farms. I would look to get him on to some good quality high fibre rabbit pellets - something like oxbow bunny basics, Science selective adult or burgess excel light. I say the light option for excel just because I find that for some buns normal excel seems to continue to cause problems - my Bruce being one. You need to be feeding approx an egg cupful of pellets. This will improve the quality of his poo and you can focus on adding in veg and herbs slowly.

Thanks for the advice, he has had no problem with them before so I thought it was the readisgrass. I have some adult pellets a 10kg bag waiting to change him to them when he is 6 months and limit them. I will cut him down and see how he goes, he does have plenty of hay, good quality timothy hay , he loves it and his poops have been great til now. Is it definitely 6 months when I change to adult too?

Nope, he can change now. In the wild buns would be almost fully weaned by 6 weeks and living on grass, hedgerow pickings etc. so it will do him no harm to have an adult food.

I agree with Cheryl, it's most likely the unlimited pellets giving him a sticky bum.

I'd swap him now if I was you. Like Cheryl said, he'll be fine to change over before six months

Good luck with it all and keep us posted!

Okay, I will limit him, I read up that you had to do this gradually even though it is the same brand, is this true? if his poops do not improve on adult and limited I will get him on light, but hopefully he will be fine as the bag is a new 10kg bag lol. I will do what is best for my baby though and if that means changing if I have to I will.

Thanks.

oh and his hay is excellent quality, he is on western timothy and he loves it.

hello, I agree with the others. Hay is best for buns!

I will limit and move him to adult, thanks

It is partly about getting you bun to accept the new food and also about making sure you bun does not get an upset tum. A 10% change a day is normally recommended.

Okay, thanks, will change it slowly.

BugsBunny wrote:oh and his hay is excellent quality, he is on western timothy and he loves it.

Western Timothy Hay is lovely

He's a very lucky bun by the sounds of things!

I totally agree with what the others have said. I did find though that one of my buns gets a poorly bottom on reddigrass.

I would limit the nuggies, increase the hay send then once the tum has settled down then move slowly onto the adult, mixing about 10% per day. Also, for now take away the reddi grass.

Sounds like your bun is lucky to have you :-)

Yes I have stopped it already and thanks for the advice and thanks for the nice comment. I just believe in giving our pets a good life. I am glad I found this forum for help, and appreciate all the advice.

Also I have read up tons as want to make sure I look after him right and properly, I have learnt so much but also sometimes it is confusing as I read unlimited pellets and then no etc but I will go with the advice everyone as given me on here and limit as I said above and change to adult.

A lot of the info out there is quite old and the advice on rabbit nutrition has changed hugely over recent years. The majority hay diet with some veg and a very limited amount of pellets comes recommended by the Rabbit welfare association.

We used to give unlimited pellets to our own youngsters and the foster babies we had, but we have two young buns here at the moment and have kept their pellet supply right down to make sure they are good hay eaters.

We were guilty of feeding too many pellets to even our adult buns, but have gradually cut their feeds down over several months and now have leaner, happier, healthier, more active buns who eat absolutely stacks of hay.

As long as they have loads of fresh hay, they won't starve.

Our mini-lop, Theo, has had his front teeth removed as they were misaligned. We try to get him eating tons of hay to make sure he does not have problems with any of his other teeth. Mini lops can be prone to tooth problems due to their shortened faces, and this risk can be massively reduced if they eat loads and loads of hay when they are young. Theo is 2kg and gets 10g of Science Selective and 5g of Burgess Excel Adult pellets twice a day. He claims he is starving, but eats his hay when he is not given anything else.

I'd highly recommend the Science Selective food - we had sticky bottoms far more often when we were only on Burgess. We get a mix now just to ensure we are used to two different types of food in case we ever can't get one or the other, but we get 2/3 SS and 1/3 Burgess. Everybun eats the SS first and leaves the Burgess till last too

The readigrass lasts for ever so it will keep until he is a bit older and he may cope with it better.

Like Sparky my pair get a mix of different pellets so they don't selective feed. They get selective normal and mature and excel light and mature (my buns are 6 and 9 years).

On the hay front they also get a mix. Currently we have ings (which is a meadow hay so is a mix of grasses by it's nature) and we have a timothy and rye mix. My buns get through loads of it so it must be good.

As Sparky said, snub nosed rabbits such as lops, nethies, lionheads etc often get teeth problems due to their head shape - my bun Bruce is one of these, his jaw does not line up properly. He also gets excess cecals if his diet is wrong. The diet he gets ensures his dentals are minimal and his tummy is happy. And he has just turned 9.

He does eat a lot of hay but I am not sure how much total as he takes from different piles and he has hay all over in different areas in his bedroom. I have a 4.5kg bag of timothy hay and half quarter of it left. Had the bag 3 days after getting him. Got him at 9 weeks , he is now 4 months.

I want to do health checks but he does not allow me to pick him, I can groom and play chase, sit with him, he loves nose rubs, being stroked, groomed and I can touch around the bum and underneath more now too. I watched a vid on here that is brill so I am trying my hardest and going to try my hardest to pick him up. He is at the vets Tuesday and I am dreading getting him in his carrier to take him. He is so soft in every way, he wont bite me just runs off when I try lifting him. Then I can keep a check on his teeth etc and bum.

I will limit him and get him eating even more hay, he has been on timothy since we got him as I tried him with it and he loves it and his fur is lovely too because of that and the food I assume. I would change him over but til now he has been fine and loves excel, when I was changing him from rabbit royale he just went for the excel. Also we have a 10kg bag and it is not cheap. Obviously if he still has problems I will change him and change him to SS for sure, but hoping we do not have to.

I tried Dougal on meadow hay but he was not keen, maybe it is cos it was comfey pet and not western. I do think it is the readigrass more than anything but I will deifinately limit and change slowly to adult and if then he still is not right he will be changed.

You are all great and very helpful, I was wondering if I was giving too much as it is not a small bowl he has too, not hug but not small and I was worried if waiting til 6 months was wise, but now I know I can sort him out properly and keep him happy. He is happy and bouncy hehe and he is lively, and probably even more so when he eats even more hay.

Not all hay is equal - a lot of people here love Hay for pets hay which you can buy direct from them online. But often you can get good stuff from local equine feed suppliers or local farms. Buns can be quite picky. Not all meadow hays are the same either, I would recommend giving different types a go not least because they are cheaper than western timothy.

As a rule of thumb you should expect your bun to eat a pile of hay the size of themselves in a day. I have the 2 buns and 3 guinea pigs and they get through 9.5kg a month between them and most of it is eaten by the buns.

We use hay for pets Ings Hay. My guys love it!

I see him eat hay a lot but not sure the exact amount , he has some in a wooden hay rack which he loves eating out of, some in a cardboard box, some on floor near where he lies, there's small piles and bigger ones all around him to make sire he is encouraged to eat a lot of hay. He has quarter of 4.5kg bag let , we got the hay 3 days after getting him from 9 weeks old and he is 4 months. Does that sounds like he is eating a lot of it? he does appear to as when I am in he eats it often and his favorite part is the seed end bits on the timothy hay, he loves me giving them to him lol.

I might try a different type soon with it, just to mix it up for him etc, I am just glad he that the first 1 tried as it is a big bag and not cheap that he liked it and I knew more importantly it is a good quality hay. His fur looks gorgeous too.

Never heard of that hay before, will take a look.

We deffo need pics !

Will post some as soon as I can, trouble is I do not put flash on camera as I do not like flashing cameras in animals eyes. I hate camera flashes in my eyes so I know animals would so you cannot see how shiny he truly is but I think I have 1 that does show the shine more clearly as I did not realize I had not turned the flash off 1 night and the poor fellas eyes where like what the hell was that lol, poor baby.

I spend lots of time with him too so he does not get lonely and bored, usually about this time or sometimes 1am, yes 1am when am shattered and going bed he has me playing a game called Binky Boo lol, it is chasing each other and him hiding behind cage waiting for me to find him and then he runs and binks , it is good fun and he loves it, I call it Binky Boo and neighbors must think I am a loon when they hear me going "Binky Boo" and running about.

Also that hay mentioned in a few post back, does anybody else get it from there too and use that hay?

Honestly loads of the buns here have it -

https://happyhoppers.forumotion.co.uk/t20385-hay-for-pets-poll?highlight=hay+for+pets

There are more threads about it if you use the search function. They have brilliant customer service as well.

I believe you don't worry lol. I will order a sample pack, my husband is going to love me spending more money but if I try a sample and he does like one I can maybe order some at some point in the near future. Also what type of hay is Ings?

Oh and my only worry with limiting pellets at 4 months was the calcium, will he get enough with being young and on timothy hay even if he has limited and changed to adult too? I am going to do it but was just curious.