Bladder sludge and stones



Registered veterinary nurse Jo Hinde writes: The most current thinking is that bladder sludge is caused by lack of mobility and not diet. Ok so the easiest way to describe...think of salad dressing (smile emoticon) if it hasn't been shaken for a week, all the particles drop to the bottom. If it hasn't been shaken for a few months, these particles clump together at the bottom. Rabbits bladders are the same. Their urine naturally has particles in. As they naturally move around a lot to constantly graze for food, all the particles are well suspended in the pee. If due do obesity, arthritis, disability etc they stop moving around...the particles sink to the bottom of the bladder and no longer mix up and get pee'd out. The longer this happens, the more they clump, turn to sludge and poss stones. So....in a healthy rabbit, as long as the diet is well balanced, then bladder sludge is actually quite rare. If they are less mobile, you want to look at the root cause ie lose weight or give pain relief twice daily for arthritis. You also need to keep very well hydrated. But even then, you don't need to cut out calcium. It's not that simple as it's thought that phosphorous and the ca:pa ratio has more to do with sludge than just calcium intake. Plus there are diff types of calcium and it's vital it's not restricted too much otherwise it affects teeth and bones. A final point about fresh greens in the diet - only needs to be 1 small handful per day per bunny approx the same size as their head. Yes many rabbits can tolerate more but as always, it's about balance and hay needs to be the main part of the diet. Keep the veg and pellets very low and they eat loads of hay. This also means they drink a lot more rather than getting fluid from the veg thus flushing the kidneys and bladder through more too. Mary E. Cotter, M.A., Ed.D., LVT, founder of Rabbit Rescue & Rehab, chapter mgr NYC House Rabbit Society, VP iHRS writes on the subject: "'When rabbits have bladder sludge, there's a lot of controversy on how to deal with that. It's poorly understood. The phenomenon is poorly understood. People used to think that if you took calcium out of the diet or removed as much as possible, fed the rabbit no high-calcium vegetables, that that would help. But what we found out through the years is that this really is a metabolic problem. Changing the diet may not be a good thing, and, in fact, may be a bad thing because if the rabbit's diet has less calcium, the rabbit may start drawing calcium from his bones to meet his calcium needs. He may start excreting the same amount of calcium.'"