Dishing out the poop, so to speak

Just when I think things are down to a routine with the wascally wabbit, he throws me a curveball.

The latest: ever since we got home from our vacation, I've noticed that Mickey hasn't been eating much of his papaya chunks-and-pineapple juice mix. Normally, the dish is empty or near-empty by late evening/early morning, but now there's barely a dent in it, if he touches it at all. At first, I assumed it was due to the papaya possibly having gone bad near the end of a particular piece, so it was tossed and a new one bought, but he turned up his nose at that one as well. I checked the pineapple juice; its sell-by date had passed the day before, perhaps it had gone bad beforehand? Nope, still good, but I tossed it anyway and got fresh. Not a nibble.

Of course, the over-protective/uber-paranoid bunny-mum in me starts freaking out a bit, because the papaya/pineapple mix is supposed to be keeping Mr. Furball from getting furballs where he's not supposed to get them--in his stomach. This has been a particular problem for Mickey; because he has such a particularly thick coat, he ingests fur through grooming on a pretty constant basis, and until I started him on the papaya/pineapple mix, he was passing an awful lot of hair in his poop, which meant that there was enough in him to possibly cause a blockage in his system.

A quick check of the litterbox, however, reveals no sign of hair in the bunny poop. In fact, the bunny poop is looking pretty darn good...

We interrupt this post with a message to non-rabbit-owners: Part of being a rabbit owner involves dealing with rabbit poop. Not just in the sense of cleaning it up or finding it where it shouldn't be--although that is part of it--but sometimes having to inspect it, because the quality of a rabbit's poop will tell you a lot about what is going on inside it, and when you have a pet that is a prey animal by nature, it's not going to let you know when it's sick, and often, by the time you're seeing obvious signs of illness, it's way too late. If reading about poop bothers you, perhaps you should scroll down to until you get to the pretty pictures at the end of the post, but really, I'm not going to be talking about it for much longer, so please bear with me. 

I'm seeing good-sized, uniformly round, loaded-with-fiber dry balls of rabbit poop--no little poop chains linked by hair or poop that is more fur than fiber--just ordinary, healthy rabbit poop. Obviously, all the hay that Mickey's been eating is doing him good, but hay doesn't necessarily prevent hairballs from forming, although if he's eating hay instead of grooming himself, there's less chance he'll get enough hair in him to clog his system. I've been grooming him a little more often just in case, and I've substituted papaya tablets for the fresh stuff for the time being. I figure I'll give him some time, then reintroduce the fresh at a later date if need be. Sometimes a bunny just needs a break from the routine, I guess.

Now for the pretty pictures:

One of the newest trinket boxes I bought on eBay...

...and the removable bunny inside.

The box itself is so small, you wouldn't think the little bunny would fit in it, but it does.

A small decorative pillow, purchased through the Colorado HRS Gift Shop ,

Other side of the pillow (doubly funny if you've ever seen the sad state of my house).

One of two pairs of earrings, also bought from Colorado HRS...

...and the other pair.

Have not had a chance to wear either one yet, but planning to do so soon enough.

Now wasn't all that worth dealing with a little poop?

;)