Ileus?

Question
Hi Dana,

I am writing you about my dwarf rabbit Scooter. He is about two now and is having some digestive issues that have been going on for about two months. First Scooter runs around 24-7 and has lots of toys to play with but he's mainly into junk food. He also experienced the worst shed of his life this spring, the amount of hair I removed from his body was astounding - he was a patchy scruffy mess!  A few months ago I noticed he was having frequent messy smelly poops and his litter habits weren't the best - peeing beside the box, piddling in the house etc. So I adjusted his diet and added more hay, improvement was varied. I took him and poop samples to the vet. He did well in his check up ( I know he's kind of fat but apparently not as bad as I thought) they did fecal flotation - no parasites. I got some advice on adjusting the diet.  Scooter gets hay all day and only pellets at night. the vet advised me it would take time to see results so i needed to be patient. After a week of this routine, he was somewhat better so I added some dandelion greens - big mistake he had the runniest worst poops everywhere - yuck. Back to hay and pellets. Dried the dandelion greens and added them, Scooter wouldn't eat them.  Cut some twigs off fruit tree - yummy right? - na Scooter pooped on them. Ran out of pellets, couldn't find same ones, spent half hour reading crude fibre percentages on packages, choose one with 23%. Feed Scooter last night around 8pm, get up at 7am - he hasn't touched anything - does not appear to have even stepped inot the litter box but peed behind the bedroom door, peed red under the table and left a small sticky poop in my closet. Enticed him with a  piece of romaine lettuce - he ate some of it.  His shed is over, he looks a bit skinnier - albeit healthier because he was fat, he is active and bright eyed, chewing baseboards more frequently but his eating is irregular, his poops are messy and he seems to want to pee everywhere.  I can't kleep cleaning my carpet but I don't want to put him in a  cage because I'm afraid that will bung him up. His pee color varies from dark yellow, brown and occassional red. I think the pee surprises are the most frustrating.

advice to help us get through this????

Answer
Dear Farrah,

Your bunny appears to be suffering from chronic cecal dysbiosis, a condition not uncommon in rabbits for several reasons.  You can read more about it here:

www.bio.miami.edu/hare/poop.html

Note that the most common reason for this condition is incorrect diet.  You can check here to compare what your bunny is getting with what is a healthy diet that promotes intestinal health:

www.bio.miami.edu/hare/diet.html

Cryptic health problems also can cause stress, and this can trigger GI slowdown in rabbits, resulting in cecal dysbiosis and messy bottom.  Anything from urinary tract infection, arthritis, or dental problems may be responsible.  Dental problems are especially common triggers of GI slowdown, especially in short-faced rabbits such as lops and dwarfs.  You can read more about this here:

www.bio.miami.edu/hare/dental.html

You will need the help of a good rabbit vet to figure out the problem and treat it appropriately, and you can find one here:

www.rabbit.org/vets

In the meantime, here are some tips for keeping him clean until you can get him to a rabbit-savvy vet:

www.bio.miami.edu/hare/buttbath.html

I hope this helps.

Dana