this post was submitted on 21 Apr 2025
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Science Memes

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Feces is a pathway to many abilities some consider to be unnatural. (slrpnk.net)
submitted 2 weeks ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

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?

[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

How do they know‽

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 weeks ago

One would assume by feel during excretion...

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Do they deposit the cecal pellets in the litterboxes, or do they just do them any where they please and immediately munch on em?

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 weeks ago

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.