Rabbits should have a red colour in their urine, it is normal. It is caused by the pigments called porphyrin in the plants they eat. It is collected by the kidneys and excreted when they urine.
Porphyrin is a large ring molecule that is made of 4 pyrroles (smaller rings). Each pyrrol ring is made from nitrogen and carbon. The sciencey name for the four pyrrol rings is tetraphyrrol. For more sciencey reasons it is considered to be an aromatic compound, which means it produces, transports and uses oxygen around the body. The nitrogen at the centre of the pyrroles are capable of hosting an iron molecule. So, when a rabbit digests food, the pyrrols are looking for iron, and when they connect together, the porphyrin turns red.
High levels of porphyrins cause major problems, mainly in the nervous system and skin. In rabbits, the darker their urine, the more iron they have in their system, and their kidneys are over producing porphyrin. This is caused, generally, by dehydration. It can also be caused by foods like broccoli, cabbage, dandelion, parsley and carrots.
When a rabbit has suspiciously dark urine, it could be because of the foods it ate the previous day. It should clear up and return to within the normal range in a couple of days if the rabbit isn’t fed those foods again. If it doesn’t clear up, you may have to make sure your rabbit drinks a lot of water to flush its kidneys out, but not so much that it gets overhydrated.
If your rabbit has dark red or brown urine for more than three days in a row, it is in the danger one of kidney damage. Take it to the vet.
The vet will give it hydration waters, which is very similar to our drinks of electrolytes, but specifically formulated for animals. This will make your bunny woozy for a while, but it should help clean the kidneys and ease the dehydration. If the damage is severe, the vet will give you options for other medications or alternatives.
Dehydration
Dehydration is caused by many factors, manly it is because of the water:
- Rabbits should be given a bowl or dish to drink out of, because they cannot get enough water from bottles. Rabbits are lappers like dogs and cats, and should never be given a water bottle to drink from.
- The water may taste bad. Rabbits are sensitive to how the water tastes. They will not touch stale, dirty and contaminated water. They also won’t drink water if it has poos in it.
- The water is too hot or too cold. Rabbits like room temperature water.
- “Animal-safe water flavours”, yes they do make them, and no you should NEVER use them. These flavours make the water taste like berries, pear, apple, carrot or watermelon, and should be banned. Rabbits won’t drink flavoured water, and the flavours will be artificial.
- No water available. If the rabbit doesn’t have any water available to drink, it will die within 48 hours.
How to tell if your bunny is dehydrated
No matter what anyone says, you don’t want your rabbit to have urine that is dark-red to brown. Keep in mind that sometimes it happens naturally, but if it occurs more than once in a row, you need to watch it carefully and make sure your rabbit is drinking water.
Rabbits who are dehydrated will also not be eating, and that means they will have gut stasis.
An easy way to test whether the rabbit is dehydrated, lift skin on its back and see how slowly it sinks back to its natural position. If it stays pinched and takes a long time (over 3 seconds), the rabbit is dehydrated.
Mild dehydration is when the sides of your bunny, just in front of the hips and at the base of the ribs sinks in and is really squishy. It’s urine will be a darkish-red.
The bunny will be sluggish although it may be hard to observe.
Bunnies with heat stroke may have this colour urine.
Bad dehydration is when your bunny is lethargic and grumpy. It may have stopped eating and its gut may have stopped working. At this stage, hydration is imperative, especially with a really runny mixture of Oxbow’s Critical Care (no more than 10ml per 30 min for 2 hours).
You have about 24 hours to fix this, or get your bunny to the vet.
Brown urine is dangerous. Brown urine is a mixture of porphyrin and blood. When your bunny’s wee is brown, it’s kidneys are really struggling and may shut down. You must get your rabbit to the vet.
The rabbit will have sticky saliva, crusty eyes, poor appetite, and small hard, black poops.
How to fix dehydration
Prevention is better than cure. It is vital that you keep track of how much your bunny is drinking, and if it isn’t drinking give it some water in a syringe. No more than 2ml every 30 minutes for 2 hours.
Rabbits with heat stroke won’t drink much water, even though they really should. On hot days, keep a close eye on their drinking habits and if they look sunken in on the sides, give it a drink with a syringe.
There may also be something stopping the rabbit from drinking. It may have a dental problem, throat issue or stomach pain.
A good way to measure whether your rabbit is drinking is to give it a bowl of water over night. Fill the bowl up as high as you can, and then in the morning check the water level. If the level has decreased, then your rabbit is drinking. If it’s the same height in the morning, it may be caused by two things:
- Foods it ate for dinner – foods (like lettuce or grass) may have a lot of water in them and rabbits regulate the amount of water they intake
- It may not be drinking
Change the water, it might taste awful, and keep an eye on the water level during the day.
Ferplast Azimut
This feeder can be used for both water and food. It has measurements on it so you can see how much your rabbit has been drinking.
Rabbits should drink between 70ml-250ml of water a day depending on the breed (bigger rabbits drink more).
Feeding with a syringe
Place the syringe in the corner of the mouth, offer the water slowly with lots of little presses. Give the rabbit time to swallow and have a rest. If the water is dribbling out of the mouth, stop feeding. Try again in 30 minutes.
15 ml Syringe for Critical Care feeding
This syringe is great for feeding rabbits Critical Care. It’s good to have one in your first aid kit.
For more information about feeding with a syringe, check out The Rabbit Doctors page.
Normal Urine Colour Range
There is a broad range of colours that are in the normal range. The darker the colour, the more iron in the urine.
This colour usually happens when a rabbit has eaten dark green leaves or vegetables like spinach, kale, berries or lots of dandelion. This colour usually occurs when there is a lot of beta carotene in the diet.
If this happens regularly, think about changing your rabbits diet.
Antibiotics can also cause red wee, and so can cold weather, because the rabbit doesn’t drink much in cold weather if the water is cold.
This range of colours is normal. Nothing to worry about.
Warning Urine Colours
This is a dietary issue. Your rabbit needs a lot more fibre and greens in its diet. This colour urine usually occurs when the rabbit is only on a pellet diet without any other vitamins or minerals from grass or greens.
Give your rabbit more fresh grass and you’ll see an improvement.
This also could be due to a digestion issue which is caused by a dental issue. Malocclusion, or misalignment of teeth, or teeth that are too long can cause pain when the rabbit eats. That means it will not be chewing properly and therefore it isn’t digesting its food properly.
If there is blood in the urine there is an internal bleed. If you are worried about whether there is blood in the urine, get a sample of the pee and pour hydrogen peroxide on it. If there is blood in it, it will foam up. Normal pee won’t react.
If there is blood in the urine make an emergency vet visit.
Clear wee is ok when it happens after the bunny has been on medication. If it happens regularly, that’s when there’s a problem. Rabbit wee should always have colour in it, because of the foods it eats.
Liver Problems Colours
Lime green urine is rare, but it occurs when the liver is struggling. Liver problems usually occur when the rabbit is dying.
Fluro yellow urine is a huge warning sign that the rabbits liver is shutting down and the rabbit will die within 24 hours.
Bladder Sludge
A lot of people don’t fully understand about bladder sludge. So, let’s have a look at it.
When you clean your rabbit’s litter box there may be one of two types of residue left behind:
- a chalky residue – that is bladder sludge – too much calcium in the diet.
- brown smudges – that is oxalates – too much beta carotene in the diet.
Creamy coloured chalky residue is bladder sludge. It is calcium that has built up in the rabbits kidneys that has been released after a meal. This is tolerable, but not prefect.
Creamy bladder sludge should not be a regular occurrence, especially for days in a row. If that occurs, you need to give your rabbit more phosphorus. Calcium and phosphorus must be at a ratio of 2:1 (Ca:P) to help the rabbit digest calcium properly.
Dark coloured chalky residue is bladder sludge that has been stored in the kidneys for a long time and then released. This is a problem if it occurs for more than three days in a row, as it means the rabbit is getting too much calcium in its diet. Calcium must be balanced with phosphorus at a ratio of 2:1 (Ca:P) to combat bladder sludge.
A browny, thick residue is the release of excess oxalates. It is not bladder sludge. This is classed as “normal” to see of the rabbit has eaten a lot of vegetables.
Give your bunny lots of fresh grass and water and the oxalates will clear up.
Piddle Consistency
Yep, you can tell a lot from the consistency of your rabbit’s urine. Usually, a healthy rabbit will have urine that is clear and transparent, even though it may have red colouration.
Transparent
Urine that is transparent, clear and glassy, is the best kind of wee. That is the type you want to strive for, especially if it’s in the normal range of colours.
You can tell whether your rabbit is healthy if it’s wee is transparent.
Cloudy wee
Cloudy or opaque wee is full of calcium or oxalates. It can also suggest that your rabbit has a digestive issue and it’s kidneys are working over time.
It also could mean that the rabbit has a urinary tract infection.
Floaty chalk or particles
These are calcium lumps floating around. If it occurs regularly, visit your vet.
Smelly Pee
Sometimes your bunny’s wee will smell more than other times. The smell is caused by ammonia, which is a precursor to amino acids and nucleotide synthesis.
At room temperature, it is described to be a highly irritating gas with a sharp suffocating odour. As a liquid it is corrosive, can explode when exposed to high heat, and is transported as steel containers.
In liquid form, it is toxic to plants. Agriculturalists use ammonia in gas form to bind airborne nitrogen out of the atmosphere to create a nitrogen fertiliser, and to help photosynthesis.
Ammonia is alkaline.
Some rabbits excrete a lot more ammonia than others, and some rabbits only excrete it sometimes. That is due to diet and exercise. If the rabbit leads a sedentary lifestyle, it’s wee will smell bad.
Clean the litter box every day to keep the smell to a minimum, if you leave the smell with your rabbits, it can be detrimental to its health.
Ammonia and Vinegar
Sometimes your bunny’s urine will leave a stain in the bottom of the litter box. This means that the ammonia is being corrosive on the sludge particles and it has caused a thick layer on the base of the litter box.
It is common to use vinegar on the stain to remove it. Ammonia is alkaline, while vinegar is acidic, so the chemical reaction caused will lift the stain… but…
Never mix vinegar with ammonia or bleach, because they can create dangerous chlorine gas while they neutralise each other. The remaining liquid will be ammonium acetate, which is used in textile dyeing and preserving meats.
So, yes, you can use vinegar on the stain, but wash the litter box first with dish washing liquid and a LOT of water. Rinse the box thoroughly with a LOT of water. Then pour the vinegar over the stain and let it soak in. You’ll see the stain disappear before your eyes. Then add water and dish washing liquid to the vinegar to neutralise it, pour the water-vinegar-dish washing liquid mix down the drain or on the garden where you don’t want anything to grow, and then rinse with LOTS of water. Never leave any cleaning products on the litter box.
Never pour vinegar on the stain without at least rinsing it with water first. Your safety is important, too.
Dangers of rabbit pee
Rabbit pee is generally harmless to us. After cleaning the litter box make sure you wash your hands with soap.
However, rabbit pee does contain bacteria which can be harmful for people who have AIDS. Be aware to wear gloves when you clean the litter box if that’s the case.