Kurara’s smelly poop
Took Kurara to the vets the other day because the little fella has been having stinky poo for months now. Turns out, he is lacking fiber…
… and is a tad bit overweight too.
Other bunny lovers waiting to get their bunnies seen.
The famous Saito-sensei (wrote billions of medical books and appears on tv every now and again). She owns this clinic in Tokyo and another one in Saitama.
Saito-sensei’s notes for me. Here’s the low down:
For Kurara’s size, his optimal weight should be 1.5kg. Kurara is currently 1.6kg.
The amount of pellets you are supposed to feed your rabbit per day is 1-1.5% of body mass. In short, for Kurara at the optimal weight of 1.5kg, I should be feeding him 22.5g of pellets per day (1,500kg x 1.5% = 22.5g). Unfortunately, I was feeding him closer to 45g, double the amount! So yeah, that’s why he is a tad overweight (￣ﾍ￣;)
As for the fiber issue, because he is eating so much pellets, he is eating less hay. The amount of fiber in hay is 30%. In pellets, it is approx. 15-20%. So, eating more pellets than hay means the little fella consumed less fiber. So, he has been having smelly poo.
Now, I feed him 20-25g of pellets per day and leave him with loads of fresh hay. Obviously, once Kurara is done with the pellets, he has no choice but to eat more hay. So far, the smelly poo is slowly clearing up.
Since I’m here, might as well pay and get Kurara’s nails trimmed (I usually do it myself).
Note: sometimes you may find your bunny paying little interest in the hay. This is because the hay may not be fresh (don’t leave old hay lying around for too long), the hay is different in quality because of the season, etc., etc. Saito-sensei recommended trying different brands of hay and see which one your bunny digs.
Hay is also better for bunny dental health. I found out the hard way when one of my older rabbits started developing tooth abscesses because his teeth weren’t being worn down properly by hay consumption. =(
I found that bunnies eat whatever they like first, then whatever is in lesser quantity, in other words, more precious next, then ignore the rest. So, I had a hard time tricking my bunny to eat hay. I had to literally play mind games with my son, ignoring his puppy eyes and hinting messages, and leave his pellet bowl empty. I fix the time I give him pellets, which is morning and evening, when they are gone, I leave the bowl empty. Raising bunny sons ain’t that easy, @_@”