Diarrhoea – Rabbit

“Diarrhoea syndromes”

It is important to assess the material being produced that gives rise to the above title! See assessment of faeces below. It is amazing how many veterinarians confuse polyuria in rabbits with diarrhoea. Owners often confuse the occurrence of uneaten caecotrophs with diarrhoea in their pets. It’s better to react to variation in the nature and production of faeces and consider such clinical entities as clagged vent – the passage of copious amounts of caecal material from the anus. This may be found adhered to the vent area. The caecotrophs may not been ingested because of non-gastro-intestinal causes (dental overgrowth, spinal deformities, etc).

“Diarrhoea” is rare in pet rabbits, especially adult ones and may result from enteritis which occurs in decreased gastrointestinal motility (constipation). So the appearance of the fluid stool of the carnivore with diarrhoea may not be seen in the similarly afflicted rabbit. In fact, the production of large masses of solid faeces is a more usual presentation, adhered to the vent and not removed by the animal.

If there are normal hard faecal pellets in the animal’s environment, the condition is not diarrhoea.

	Uneaten caecotrophs	Diarrhoea
Life threatening?	No	Yes, due to fluid and electrolyte disturbances
Frequency of production	Once or twice a day	Several times a day, often mixed with mucus
Hard faeces?	Yes - often normal production	No, only unformed stools seen
Anorexia	No	Yes
Depression	No	Yes
Smell	Strong - risk of fly strike	Variable
Owner reaction	Maybe over-react, due to smell	Probably slow, due to comparison with monogastric species.