"Fecal pellets" refers to small, solid pieces of waste or poop that some animals, like rabbits or rodents, produce as part of their digestion process.
Full definition
If your rabbit's
fecal pellets change in number, size, or texture, lay off the fruit and stick to hay.
A lot of carbon falls to the ocean floor in the form
of fecal pellets, and so is taken out of circulation for a while.
If your rabbit is not producing as many
fecal pellets as usual, stop feeding them fruit and instead increase their hay intake.
This will greatly reduce your rabbit's tendency to mark its territory, which is typically done by spraying urine and / or
dropping fecal pellets.
If your rabbit has a poor appetite, runny stool, or has not been producing as
many fecal pellets as they usually do, you shouldn't give them any starchy foods.
Known as «marine snow,» the particles were roughly 80 % slime or mucus — what remains after algae cells die — 15 % living algae, and 5 %
fecal pellets from zooplankton which had eaten the algae.
In previous work, Madin and WHOI biologist Richard Harbison found that salp
fecal pellets sink as much as 1,000 meters (3,280 feet) a day.
If your rabbit is passing small,
hard fecal pellets, straining to defecate, or hasn't had a bowel movement in 12 hours, take them to the vet immediately.
Both rabbits and guinea pigs pass soft, mucus - covered
fecal pellets called cecotropes, which they proceed to eat.
These feces have more protein, less fiber and higher levels of certain vitamins, such as B vitamins, than the typical hard
bunny fecal pellets you might see in the litterbox or around your rabbit's cage.
For instance, from Encyclopedia Brittanica... «Some lagomorphs (rabbits and hares) are capable of re-ingesting moist and nutritionally
rich fecal pellets, a practice considered comparable to cud - chewing in ruminants...»
Oceanographers call this the ballast effect — the transport of carbon into the ocean interior via sinking dead cells or
fecal pellets where it is stored for a very long time,» explains Prof. Dr. Thorsten Reusch, head of Evolutionary Ecology at GEOMAR.
Researchers led by Carlos Ibanez at Spain's Estación Biológica de Doñana in Seville assembled their evidence from an ongoing study of
bat fecal pellets.
Apparently, no one had thought to look there before, but the question is important because proteins in the mites»
fecal pellets trigger asthma attacks.
Guinea pigs may also experience diarrhea or decreased fecal production, in
which fecal pellets are small and dry.
Rabbits who are showing symptoms like constipation, poor appetite, straining to
pass fecal pellets, lethargy, or abdominal bloating should not have any access to sugary or fatty foods.
Symptoms of gastrointestinal stasis include loss of appetite, tiny or
deformed fecal pellets, straining during bowel movements, and lethargy.
Rabbits engage in relatively uncommon but normal behavior when they deliberately eat small, soft, moist (often mucus covered), light
green fecal pellets directly from the anus.
If you find that your bun produces soft and runny
fecal pellets after eating oats, stick to less starchy, more fibrous foods like vegetables.
The scientists estimated that the swarm consumed up to 74 percent of microscopic carbon - containing plants from the surface water per day, and their sinking
fecal pellets transported up to 4,000 tons of carbon a day to deep water.
If your rabbit's
fecal pellets change in appearance (if they become harder, softer, strangely colored, or if they start producing more of them), reduce the amount of herbs you are feeding them and focus on hay and water until their digestive system sorts itself out.
Neutering a buck (male rabbit) is often done to reduce hormonal behavior like spraying, urinating,
dropping fecal pellets, aggressiveness and mounting behavior.
The seafloor around and under these bundles was carpeted with tiny wood chips and
fecal pellets from wood - boring clams, as well as bacteria and fungi that help decompose this organic matter.
Both the discarded houses and
fecal pellets sink to the sea floor, but may be eaten by other animals on the way down.
They feed on blood, digesting only small amounts, and excreting the remainder as small, dark,
fecal pellets called «flea dirt».
These feces have more protein, less fiber and higher levels of certain vitamins, such as B vitamins, than the typical hard
bunny fecal pellets you might see in the litter box or around your rabbit's cage.
Some varieties of lettuce (especially iceberg and other light colored varieties) contain high amounts of a substance called lactucarium, which can contribute to the formation of soft or
runny fecal pellets.
Adult B. nipponica excreted feces about 3 - 10 hours after their collection from the field, and
each fecal pellet (ca. 1 mm long) contained an average of 3.1 M. humile seeds.
«Marine snow,» Reisenbichler notes, «a mucuslike substance filled with bacteria and
fecal pellets.»
Fecal pellets that contain buoyant plastic sink more slowly and are thus more likely to be eaten, says Matthew Cole of the University of Exeter, UK.
The mites feed mainly on dead skin we shed, while both their decomposing bodies and
fecal pellets may trigger allergic reactions in humans.
Their main source of food is «marine snow» — a slow drift of mucus,
fecal pellets, and body parts — that sinks down from the surface waters.
Fecal pellets were collected at 0.5, 0.75, 1.5, 1.75, 2.5, 3, 4, 7, 10, 14, 21, 25, and 28 days post ‐ inoculation and stored at − 80 °C in 10 % PBS buffer.
Alternatively, the tanaids may consume
the fecal pellets of boring clams and the bacteria associated with them (any organic matter is precious when you're three kilometers below the ocean surface).
The harmful allergen they create comes from
their fecal pellets and body fragments.
Although an average rabbit passes about 150
fecal pellets every day, many of these are re-ingested.
Do not change the liners on bunny cages too frequently as rabbits need to eat
their fecal pellets.
Give them a small amount of cabbage with their usual diet, then wait several days to see if there are any changes in their behavior or in the appearance of
their fecal pellets.