Chapter 13 - Natures Vitamin Pill
“Eewww, is your bunny eating her poop?” asked Dad’s non-bunny person friend.
Merlot pulled her head out from between her back legs and looked up. Her ears went straight up as if she was offended.
Dad laughed, “Well, no, not exactly. She’s eating her cecotropes.”
“Her what?” asked his friend.
“Cecotropes. They are kind of like nature’s vitamin pill. Unlike their poops, which are hard, round, coco puff-looking things, cecotropes are soft and look like little blackberries or miniature clusters of grapes. When they eat, small particles of digested food move back into the cecum where it can break down fiber and ferment it. That produces nutrients like vitamins, fatty acids, and minerals which come out in those clumps. Every so often, rabbits eat them so they can absorb more nutrients. Rabbits and other herbivores often have a diet that’s low in nutrition and high in fiber, so this helps them get more nutrients out of their food. It’s a pretty amazing process,” explained Dad, “They don’t chew them, they just swallow them like we would a vitamin pill.”
Being a non-bunny person, his friend was still a little uncomfortable with the idea.
To Merlot, however, there was nothing gross about it. It was just a natural thing she did.
Discreetly, she went back about her business and thought, “Humans are so weird.”
Merlot looks offended when she is accused of eating poop.
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