Easily digestible food is processed in the gastrointestinal tract and expelled as regular feces. To get nutrients out of hard to digest fiber, rabbits ferment fiber in the cecum (part of the gastrointestinal tract) and then expel the contents as cecotropes, which are reingested (cecotrophy or refection). The cecotropes are then absorbed in the small intestine to use the nutrients. Soft cecotropes are usually consumed during periods of rest in underground burrows.
I’ve always wondered if the people who keep pet rabbits and teach them to use litter boxes are hurting the bunnies by preventing them from doing this. Or will the rabbits just eat clay-covered cecotropes?
Rabbits produce two kinds of feces: normal “waste” feces and edible “cecotropes” or “cecal pellets”. They generally eat the cecotropes immediately after excreting them, and only drop the waste into their litterboxes.
They deposit them directly into their mouth. They know when they’re about to produce one and they reach down there with their mouth and consume it directly.
If you think about where wild rabbits spend most of their time (underground in burrows surrounded by dirt) this makes total sense. By not allowing cecotropes to touch the ground, they avoid contamination with soil-borne pathogens.
That’s basically what rabbits do. From Wikipedia:
Humans may be unique among mammals for not eating our own shit, the shit of others, or just any random shit we find.
That’s not my experience during my college years.
My man hasn’t heard of ‘yellow soup’
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8155486/
https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2014/10/11/355126926/frozen-poop-pills-fight-life-threatening-infections
Guinea pigs too.
You’ll be holding the piggie, and she’ll curl up and grab a fresh turd right from the source and chomp that up.
I’ve always wondered if the people who keep pet rabbits and teach them to use litter boxes are hurting the bunnies by preventing them from doing this. Or will the rabbits just eat clay-covered cecotropes?
Bunny owner here, I can answer this!
Rabbits produce two kinds of feces: normal “waste” feces and edible “cecotropes” or “cecal pellets”. They generally eat the cecotropes immediately after excreting them, and only drop the waste into their litterboxes.
How do they know‽
One would assume by feel during excretion…
Do they deposit the cecal pellets in the litterboxes, or do they just do them any where they please and immediately munch on em?
They deposit them directly into their mouth. They know when they’re about to produce one and they reach down there with their mouth and consume it directly.
If you think about where wild rabbits spend most of their time (underground in burrows surrounded by dirt) this makes total sense. By not allowing cecotropes to touch the ground, they avoid contamination with soil-borne pathogens.