Back with more problems

I hope y'all like to learn about my weird issues with my rabbits I keep having..

So, Chardonnay, Belgian hare, 1 year 4 months about. Aug 8th marked day 28 of pregnancy (though I usually have babies day 30-31).
Monday/Tuesday she spent most of her time laying down stretch out completely. Heaving breathing, sounded a bit congested even. Dirty bum.
Wednesday she had started to drool all over herself. I took her inside. Her temperature was 42C (over 40.5C is an emergency. usually body temperature lowers before birth). She would run around frantically, falling over a lot. Then stretch out again with butt sticking upwards.
An hour into this when I was sure this wasn't just a regular overheating issue, we took her to the vet.
The kits were still far up in the stomach and not in position to be born. Despite this I was urging that something was not right with her. She got calcium by mouth and an oxytocin injection. We put her somewhere dark and she passed six kits.
At first I thought they were under-developed. But they are I guess "trademark DOA kits" in their appearance. Apparently dying in the womb makes their bodies swell and they look like this, and feel gross to the touch. But she did clean them off well, poor thing.





We're pretty sure she would have died if we didn't induce her labour to get these out. They might have been toxic to her.

Now we're okay from the vet to rebreed her again but I want to change my regime. The hares I think are a bit too delicate to just feed the normal 16% ration that I do for my other rabbits. He thinks maybe we should do something different.
So these are my ideas.. that I'll go over with the vet..
-Supplement calf manna (maybe start 1 week before due date?)
-alfalfa cube supplement (again, start last week of pregnancy)

I know a lot of people worry about too much calcium, but if it's just for the pregnancy/kit rearing it shouldn't cause a problem I wouldn't think. In order to give birth a rabbit needs to release calcium into the blood stream from the bones. This is controlled by hormones, and it's possible her hormones were poorly balanced. So a solution to that would be to add more calcium in the diet.. I THINK... no one else seems to agree with me on this :lol:

i can't comment on the ideas about calcium and calcium release from bones that you mentioned, but I can tell you that my rabbits always ate free choice alfalfa hay every day, in addition to their fresh foods and a small amount of grain. I never had any problems . . . excess calcium is excreted in the urine and only causes problems if it accumulates as bladder sludge. I never saw any sign of that happening.

Going for a higher protein makes alot of sense. However, I think might be more beneficial to feed an 18% ration all the time instead of supplementing with the calf mana.

If I couldn't find a 18% ration I think I would supplement with BOSS. The extra fat might be beneficial to the hares as well.

I'm not nearly as experienced as some of the other breeders here but that is what "feels" right to me.

Ha ha.. I really doubt feeding high protein all the time is a good idea... considering..


Pinot is 5.5kg (1kg over max weight for breed). Her daughters are 4.5kg but I'm sure they'll catch up to her shortly. All my boys are about 4.5kg as well. So they're all teetering on the high end for their breed. It's a genetic thing for some lines, that those does get this big, I'm told. But it still makes breeding hard. They are already on portion control and running around doesn't help either. They do get BOSS but only in the winter time, and only the ones that will eat it (super picky rabbits, the calf manna was attractive because apparently it's irresistible).


Good to know that you feed a lot of alfalfa Maggie, I know I've seen you mention it before. My rabbits pee clear yellow as it is, with very little/no sludge in their urine from what I've seen. Their food only has 0.9% calcium and honestly we don't feed very much greens here (again because they're so picky. mostly they will eat lettuce and carrot, spinach, foraged greens in the summer, but our drought this year has made foraging impossible). The only rabbit I've had with constant sludge issues was my old mini rex buck who I rescued, even with the best food money could buy and me being careful with him he'd always pee out so much...