Last Updated: 12/08/2026
Rabbit Poop: What's Normal, What's Not, and When to Worry
Worried about what's in your rabbit's litter tray? Here's how to tell healthy rabbit poop from the warning signs your vet needs to know about.
Author: Dr Olivia Clarke BSc BVMS MANZCVS (Unusual Pets, Avian)
Reading Time: 5 minutes - short read
If you want a window into your rabbit's health, look no further than their litter tray! Rabbits are prey animals that hide illness well, but their poop tells the real story. As specialised herbivores, a rabbit's gut relies on billions of fibre-fermenting bacteria to keep everything moving, so most digestive problems start with what's going into the bowl. And abnormal poos are a signal that digestion is struggling. Here's how to read the normal, the abnormal and the red flags, plus exactly how to feed your rabbit for a happy gut and healthy poops.
What Are the Two Types of Rabbit Poop?
Rabbits produce two very different droppings: faecal pellets, their everyday poops you see throughout the litter tray, and caecotrophs, softer, nutrient-rich droppings your rabbit eats straight from the bottom to recycle nutrients. It sounds odd, but it's completely normal and essential to their health. In a healthy rabbit you'll rarely spot caecotrophs lying around, so if you're seeing them regularly, it's worth a vet check, as it can point to a diet that's too rich, dental disease, or difficulty reaching them.
Here's how the two compare:
Faecal pellets
- Appearance: dry, hard, round, golden brown and fibrous, uniform in shape and colour
- How often: produced continuously all day, often 100+ daily
- Composition: mostly indigestible fibre
- Purpose: true waste, the leftover fibre from your rabbit's gut after all the nutrition has been extracted
Caecotrophs
- Appearance: soft, dark brown, mucus-coated, clustered like tiny bunches of grapes and can have a pungent odour
- How often: produced once or twice a day, usually overnight or first thing in the morning, and eaten immediately
- Composition: rich in protein, B vitamins, vitamin K and essential fatty acids
- Purpose: nutrient recycling, giving your rabbit a second pass at absorbing vital nutrients
How Can I Tell If My Rabbit's Poos Are Abnormal?
Abnormal poos come in a variety of forms but they all point to one thing: changes in poop are often the earliest clue that something's off with your rabbit’s digestion and health.
- Small, dark, dry pellets: too little fibre or dehydration
- Poops strung together with fur: heavy moulting, too little fibre
- Mucus-coated or misshapen poops: gut inflammation or irritation
- Soft, mushy droppings stuck to the bottom: diet too high in carbohydrate or sugar and too low in fibre
- Tiny or no poops at all: the biggest red flag, key sign of gut stasis
Any deviation from normal warrants a vet visit. Abnormal poops mean gut motility is off, and rabbits can go downhill within hours.
What Is Gut Stasis?
A rabbit that stops eating or stops pooping may be sliding into gut stasis, where digestion slows or grinds to a halt entirely. Gut stasis isn't a disease in itself: it's an umbrella term for slowed gut motility, and can be triggered by diet, dehydration, pain or an underlying illness. That's why it’s important to work with your vet to address the underlying cause and not just treat the symptoms. Whatever the trigger, gut stasis is a true emergency, not a wait-and-see situation. If your rabbit hasn't eaten or passed droppings for several hours, see a vet straight away, don't wait until morning.
What Should My Rabbit Eat?
Getting the diet right is the best thing you can do to promote good digestive and overall health in your rabbit. Here is a break down of exactly what to feed:
- Hay: about 80% of the diet. Fresh grassy hay should make up the bulk of the diet. Feed a pile roughly the size of your rabbit daily. The long fibre strands keep the gut moving and wear down those constantly growing teeth.
- Leafy greens: about 10-15%. Offer 1 to 2 cups of leafy greens per 2kg of your rabbit's body weight each day, split across at least two or three different varieties.
- Pellets: about 5-10%. Pellets are there to fill nutritional gaps, not to be the main diet. As a guide feed approximately 1 tablespoon per 1kg of body weight daily.
- Treats < 5% (ideally 1-2%): carrot and fruits are high in sugar and can lead to digestive issues and other health problems if overfed. Keep treats to small portions only a couple of times a week.
How to pick a good pellet: choose a plain, timothy or grass-based pellet and look for a minimum crude fibre of at least 18-20%. See our full guide to what to feed rats, rabbits and guinea pigs for more.
Remember to have fresh water available at all times. Keeping your rabbit hydrated as another important step in reducing digestion issues.
Does Exercise Help Rabbit Digestion?
Yes! Physical activity stimulates normal gut motility, so a rabbit who spends most of the day cooped up in a hutch or cage is at higher risk of sluggish digestion and gut stasis.
Aim to give your rabbit several hours of supervised, out-of-cage time every day in a rabbit-proofed room or a secure exercise pen, with space to run, jump and explore. Enrichment like tunnels, digging boxes and foraging toys encourages the kind of natural movement that keeps their gut, and their mind, active. See our rabbit care guide for more on housing and enrichment.
When Should You See a Vet?
Your rabbit can't tell you when something's wrong, but their poop can. Any deviations from normal poop warrant a vet check. See a vet urgently if your rabbit stops eating or pooping, is hunched, quiet or lethargic. When it comes to a rabbit's gut, sooner is always safer.
Rabbit Poop FAQs
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History
Our experts continually monitor the health and wellness space and we update our articles when new information becomes available.
Wed Aug 12 2026
Written by Dr Olivia Clarke BSc BVMS MANZCVS (Unusual Pets, Avian)Dr Olivia Clarke BSc BVMS MANZCVS (Unusual Pets, Avian)
Veterinarian
Dr Olivia graduated from Murdoch University in 2015 and worked in Western Australia before moving to Sydney to work in specialist practice as an avian and exotics veterinarian. Olivia has thoroughly enjoyed the diversity of species and interesting cases in her time as an exotics veterinarian. She has a particular soft spot for rabbits and thoroughly enjoys all aspects of rabbit medicine and surgery. She also has many years of experience working with dogs and cats as well as an array of wildlife.
