Hand feeding?

Hey guys, what is your opinion on hand feeding babies?
I really don't want the runts to die, so I handfed the babies in my first litter. (I've only had one litter)
I just held down the momma, and let the babies nursed. (Having the runts (I had 2 runts) held while feeding, so they wouldn't get pushed out of the way by the others.) I did wipe them afterward, to let them go potty. (And they did. )
Tell me your opinion. I plan on getting two more does, and if I have litters at the same time, I'll probably just hand feed the runts to one mother, and let the best mom handle the others....

Many of us on here will do that sort of thing (though the pottying part is unnecessary -- the doe doesn't potty them, either).

Some of us will actually hand-feed with formula.

Some don't, and that is an equally valid decision.

Easy Ears":1qws3zn0 said:

I plan on getting two more does, and if I have litters at the same time, I'll probably just hand feed the runts to one mother, and let the best mom handle the others....

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I would not do this. Some runts cannot nurse effectively, so you may end up with a doe with mastitis because the runts don't draw off enough milk. I would let both does keep their litters, and foster only if necessary. Do the lap-feeding thing for the runts, IF they aren't getting enough. If they have little marble tummies, they're getting enough.

That's not what we call hand feeding. Hand feeding is named because it comes directly from your hand. For rabbits usually eye dropper or syringe. I don't do this this anymore. It is very difficult and they often die when you try to add solid food. Giving kits to another doe is called fostering. Another way to help the runts is by taking the bigger ones out for 12 to 24 hours depending how often the doe feeds. Some split the litter in half and rotate that way. You have to make sure each group can stay warm enough.

I'm late to the conversation, but thought I would put in my two cents! I originally wanted to just cull the runts, but DH got a bit upset every time a baby died, so I did some research and came up with a plan.

We breed our does at the same time for fostering, but if there is a really disparity in size we've actually mixed the litters up. One nest box will contain all of the largest kits, and the other all of the smallest. Generally we will put more kits into the "small" nest box, so that total body weight of the kits in each box is roughly equal.

We also do a quick weigh in of each kit for the first 10-14 days, depending on how they're doing. Any kits who are still not doing well get hand-fed mid-day (formula), so that it doesn't compete with the natural nursing times (dusk & dawn roughly). Once we did this, we found that most kits only needed to be hand fed for two or three days, and then they caught back up with the others and did fine from there. What I didn't expect was that we then ended up with all kits being within about 6 ounces of each other at processing time, which is a bonus!

We have stopped flipping a doe to nurse because we want that meal to be a complete "extra" mid-day and DH works away from home. I found a great formula on a squirrel rescue site - 1 part KMR, 1 part goat's milk, then smaller parts each of colostrum and ultra boost. There was one kit this last litter who decided he liked me better than his mama, so he got hand fed twice a day from about 6 days old thru about 5 weeks. He had no troubles transitioning to solid foods.

Thanks guys! VERY helpful info!!!!

Especially Comet007...THANKS!