digestive system of rabbit
Answers
To fully understand this process, starting at the beginning will help. The rabbit uses its prehensile lips to grasp the plant and then bites off the plant with its front teeth, also known as incisors. Once in the mouth, the plant is pushed back to the molars where it is chewed into very small pieces and mixed with enzymes from the rabbit's saliva. Then the rabbit sends the food down the esophagus by swallowing.
Once passing the esophagus, the food will enter the stomach. A rabbit's stomach is relatively large in reference to the size of a rabbit. In the stomach, the food is sterilized by acid and then enzymes begin to break down the food for digestion.
The plant food is then pushed into the small intestines. In the small intestines, more enzymes are produced to break down the food further. This allows the nutrients to be extracted and pass through the lining of the small intestines to be absorbed into the blood stream. Sounds fairly normal, right? Well, here comes the uniqueness of the rabbit's digestive system.
What is left in the small intestines is passed into the colon. Since the enzymes can't break down the fiber in plants, it is left up to the colon to sort it out. The colon sorts out what can still be digested and sends it on to an organ called the cecum to break down the food product even further.
Inside the cecum, yeast, bacteria, and other organisms work hard to break down the food into something that can be further digested as nutrients. Once broken down, the cecum sends the mixture coated in protective mucus back to the colon. This is where the rabbit's digestive system gets a bit disgusting to some people.
The colon then pushes out the mucus-covered mixture called cecotropes. Rabbit owners have often referred to this as night droppings. Often they look like a cluster of small, moist grapes. Generally, most rabbits will consume cecotropes as they are exiting their anus. For the most part, it will just appear as though the rabbit is grooming itself. Typically rabbits will do this at night or during early morning hours.
Once the cecotropes are consumed, they are passed through the rabbit's digestive system just as the plant food did. Nutrients are absorbed through the lining of the small intestine, on to the blood stream, and then what can't be absorbed is pushed back to the colon.
The colon then takes what is indigestible and turns it in to waste. This is what most people see as rabbit fecal droppings.
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Path of digestion
Food travels from the stomach to the small intestine, where it encounters enzymes which aid in digestion and absorption of nutrients from proteins, sugars and starches. From there it travels to the cecum, where the microbial breakdown of fiber occurs. It then enters the large intestine, where there is significant water resorption, followed by excretion of the feces.
If the cecum occurs at the end of the digestive tract, how do the nutrients released from the fiber get absorbed? Volatile fatty acids, which are the energy component of fiber digestion, can be absorbed directly through the cecal epithelium. However, other nutrients such as amino acids, vitamins and minerals, are excreted in a special soft fecal pellet known as “night feces” due to the fact that they are excreted only at night. We never see them because rabbits practice coprophagy – they eat these special night feces directly from the anus. This no doubt has a “yuck factor” for humans, but for rabbits it is an extremely efficient way to capture and utilize the nutrients produced by the fermentation of feeds in the cecum.
Like all animals, rabbits need a balance of all the necessary nutrients in order to be optimally productive and healthy. What they need is determined by their stage in life. Young growing bunnies and lactating does will have the highest nutrient requirements (especially energy), while adult rabbits, such as pet rabbits, will have the lowest. Breeds with long fur, such as Angoras, may require more protein and fat to support optimal coat quality. Properly balanced feeds that meet your rabbits’ needs will keep your bunnies healthy and happy throughout their lifetime.
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