Animals sometimes tend to eat their own excrement. For some of them, it is an occasional practice. But others, like rabbits, regularly swallow some of their poops. What are the reasons for such behavior ?
The rabbit eats some of its droppings
Any owner of a rabbit has already noticed that it eats its droppings. But not just any. Indeed, the animal disdains small round and hard poops, of which it produces several hundred per day. On the other hand, it seems to appreciate other poops, softer, a little shiny and with a strong smell. A priori, not enough to really whet the appetite. But the rabbit is not of this opinion. Indeed, it seems to feast on these droppings called caecotrophs. But why this taste for its own excrement ?
A normal physiological process
If the rabbit eats some of its excrement, it is not that it is particularly fond of it. This ingestion actually meets a physiological need of the animal. Indeed, it helps him to digest better. To fully understand the process at work, we must remember what the rabbit's diet is. This animal eats mainly hay and plants, which are very rich in fibre. However, one of them, cellulose, is absorbed by the body after passing through the caecum, where this fiber undergoes a first transformation. However, this one is after the small intestine. And it is in this part of the intestine that the nutrients contained in plants, and in particular cellulose, are really absorbed by the body. Hence the need for a second ingestion of food which, after having been rejected by the body at the end of the first cycle of digestion, has become caecotrophs. These excrements are very rich in nutrients and their coating, which gives them this shiny appearance, facilitates this second digestion.
In short, this coprophagia, which refers to the fact of eating its excrement, is a completely normal physiological process in rabbits. But it is not the same for all animals. Such behavior in adult dogs, for example, is more worrying.
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