"Why is my bunny eating its poop?" is a question I often hear from pet owners. Before you knock your rabbit's dung out of its mouth, I'm going to assure you that your rabbit is normal and is just adding another practice to its diet, an essential practice.
Your bunny excretes two kinds of poops, one is for wastes and the other is called cecotropes. If you want a detailed description of cecotropes click on the link and you will be forwarded to a wikipedia site with the definition listed. To put simply, cecotropes, also called "night feces," are the material resulting from the fermentation of food in a part of the digestive system called the "cecum." The cecotropes have plenty of nutrients that your bunny needs, and that can't be supplemented by anything else on the market. It is very important that you look at your rabbit's stool and pay attention that your rabbit is producing the two kinds of poops. I should point out that rabbits usually produce cecotropes at night, but if you see a soft wet looking poop (not runny poops - that indicates your bun is sick), most likely then it is cecotropes.
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"Gross! Why Is My Bunny Eating Its Poop?"
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8 Comments:
I don't have bunnies, but I'm happy to hear that there is a perfectly good reason for your bunny to be eating it's poop. Unfortunately my vet could not provide any medical or logical explanation to my dog's poop eating problem other than "it tastes good!"
haha thanks for commenting! I'm sure your pup finds something in its poop yummy, perhaps Cesar Millan would know ;)
That's a very clear explaination of something a lot of bunny owners seem to ask.
Thanks ferox ;)
Hey, just stopped by (through EntreCard) and wanted to say that you have a great little blog started here! I'm adding you to my links list, both for my main blog and also for my rabbit rescue blog. Keep up the good work!
Thanks for your comment and for stopping by. Thanks for creating a rabbit rescue blog, they are pets that often get tossed aside!
Ok. I did some research to see which one is which (visually), and realized that my bunny eats his fecal matter. Not the one that looks like a cluster of grapes. Is that normal? Mabye he is confused. That is actually a sadly funny thought. I've only had him 2 weeks and am trying to learn about all the funny, silly, or weird things he does.
Identifying which is the eating kind of poop can be hard sometimes for humans to point out. Your rabbit will know.
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