Hand feeding newborn kits

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Thanks Shazza, I'm pretty sure it's not a bathroom issue. I noticed this poor kit ate quite a lot this morning and I was very mildly concerned about it when I left for class. Then when I get home I see his stomach has gotten BIGGER and now sounds like a balloon to the caress of my fingertips. That hollow gassy sound. I was just so happy he was eating enthusiastically this morning I wasn't watching how much he was consuming. :(

I administered some liquid simethicone (maybe .2ml?) really just enough to get his mouth wet from it and a few swallows.
 
2CrazyFools":xcjhddnx said:
I noticed this poor kit ate quite a lot this morning and I was very mildly concerned about it when I left for class. Then when I get home I see his stomach has gotten BIGGER and now sounds like a balloon to the caress of my fingertips. That hollow gassy sound.
:(
Poor little kit… hopefully the simethicone works and he feels better soon. That’s such a bummer.

I'm crossing my fingers for you guys!
 
:eek: Good luck my friend. This does happen and that's why I wasn't sure about the pro-bio you went with. Seems I remember reading goat wasn't the best to use (for bunnies). Maybe the Simethicone will do it's job. BEST of luck!!!
 
Well he's still alive and active. Very hungry ("Feed me! Feed me NOW.") but still bloated so I haven't fed him anything other than another tiny dose of the Simethicone. Keep crossing your fingers guys. <br /><br /> -- Mon Mar 20, 2017 10:14 pm -- <br /><br /> Good news. His belly has gone down! It's still bloated, but at about 1/3rd what it was. Y'all crossing your fingers worked really well so far! I fed the rest of the kits and man is this guy hungry, he's licking off the formula that is on the other kits faces. So I gave him a VERY LITTLE bit of formula, about as much as I'm doing of the simethicone at ~0.2ml.

I gave him the .2 ml of simethicone at 4ish, then again at 8 ish, and now one last small dose at 10. Goodness I hope he makes it through the night, but like I said, he's VERY active. Trying to feed him just a little formula and he was crawling out of my hands trying to get to it. I added a little extra probiotics to this formula, just to be on the safe side.

Homer - Is the Bene-Bac a powder form or liquid? I'm looking at purchasing some online and having it shipped here. Is this it? Bene-bac Amazon.
 
Sounds like your lil guy might be past the worst of it. I sure hope so! :clover: :clover: :clover:

I've been following this thread, but I really had nothing useful to add, since I've never hand-fed kits.
 
2CrazyFools":19g3cof9 said:
Well he's still alive and active. Very hungry ("Feed me! Feed me NOW.") but still bloated so I haven't fed him anything other than another tiny dose of the Simethicone. Keep crossing your fingers guys.

-- Mon Mar 20, 2017 10:14 pm --

Good news. His belly has gone down! It's still bloated, but at about 1/3rd what it was. Y'all crossing your fingers worked really well so far! I fed the rest of the kits and man is this guy hungry, he's licking off the formula that is on the other kits faces. So I gave him a VERY LITTLE bit of formula, about as much as I'm doing of the simethicone at ~0.2ml.

I gave him the .2 ml of simethicone at 4ish, then again at 8 ish, and now one last small dose at 10. Goodness I hope he makes it through the night, but like I said, he's VERY active. Trying to feed him just a little formula and he was crawling out of my hands trying to get to it. I added a little extra probiotics to this formula, just to be on the safe side.

Homer - Is the Bene-Bac a powder form or liquid? I'm looking at purchasing some online and having it shipped here. Is this it? Bene-bac Amazon.

Glad he's doing better for you! Yes the stuff in the Amazon ad is what I used when I worked on modifying the formula Miss M had posted years ago.

I'm sure he's hungry but I'd wait till morning to feed him and then not to much. maybe give him a few drops of water to hold him over.

edit: It's a powder Crazy.
 
Everyone is alive this morning! No more bloating! :D

Here's what the poor bun looked like yesterday around 3:30. :(
Screen Shot 2017-03-21 at 9.40.38 AM.png

I'm having a difficult time figuring out which "bottle" to use. I tried the syringe we have and that was overly messy, and I liked the glass eye dropper but.... it's glass. I'm worried about these guys biting down to the point it breaks in their mouth. I've got a larger plastic eye dropper but it's too big, and I purchased a kitten nursing bottle with exchangable tips and well, it just doesn't seem to work well at all! I'm going to expand the hole and see if that helps. *grumbles*

I'm just glad everyone is okay. :oops:
 
glass droppers are surprisingly tough, and at least right now, they shouldn't be strong enough to hurt it. and yeah...those kitten feeding kits are NOTORIOUS for having the tiniest holes in the nipples imaginable. we always cut them bigger as soon as we open them lol. did you get one with the different nipples or just the kitten one? i think there's a long skinny nipple in some of them that's supposed to be for rabbits. the pet ag ones in general seem sub-par in general - they never seem to flow as well. there was another brand that we can't get anymore (hartz maybe?) that was much better. you'd think there was no difference, but after 10 years of fostering kittens you realize not all products are made the same, haha.

glad to hear he's doing well
 
Well from what I can tell they didn't have any holes in them to begin with so I cut a pretty decent sized "X" on the tip, but still it's been aggravating. So I just now snipped an itsy bitsy part off of each X tip to produce a small hole as well as the X. This way it should be easier for the babies to suck it out without me needing to apply any pressure on the bottle. Which I think is what helped contribute to the overfeeding yesterday morning.

This is the bottle I purchased from PetCo, "Well & Good." It did come with the long and skinny nipple and I started out with that one but it would bend away from their mouthes and just make a big mess, or they would latch on and shoot their head forward and take the WHOLE thing into their mouth and neck. :shock:
 
If bloat happens again aside from increasing the probiotic I might lower the sugar a little temporarily. Bacteria love sugars like corn syrup and can produce excessive gas from it. Personally I don't like it in the mix but the extra energy can make up for a poor feeding and the reduced concentration of formulas compared to rabbit milk so you don't have to feed as often. It's been an old stand by forever in rabbit raising formulas. Definitely massage the stomach. Usually they will stimulate each other enough wiggling around and even just picking one up a river of pee can come out so it usually doesn't take much but sometimes one gets a bit stuck. With kittens a little olive oil can fix bloat from stuck stool. I had one so backed up fermenting formula came out for 2 days after I got her and started oil in her formula. The smell! With rabbits I would be more concerned about gas blocking stool though. The long digestive tract of a rabbit doesn't move gas out very efficiently. If it really does seem like it's not solid stool and it won't go away a drop of liquid simethicone (you can get it for infants) may help stick the bubbles together so the intestines can push it better. I didn't try it but mints will also help gas and reduce intestinal inflammation but it's hard to get a fresh, good quality into kits since they are on liquid only diets. I haven't tried using extracts but I use dissolvable tablets and teas on my own overly sensitive digestive tract and it makes a huge difference within 12-24hrs if you are having trouble digesting something. The problem is I can sit here drinking 3 mugs of mint tea through the day where you've got only a couple feedings a day with just enough liquid for the formula to get anything in the kits. Such a micro level makes the necessary concentration of things different and having not tried it I'm not sure the amount or type that would be the most helpful. Probably couldn't hurt to use mint water to mix the formula if they start to go downhill because you've got a very short window to bring them back to good health. Kits not digesting food become inactive kits not producing body heat and then they will have even more trouble digesting and you rapidly get a digestive tract that completely stops functioning correctly so at that point it's whatever I can think of to soothe things and get them moving again.

For rabbit sized nipples which can go on syringes and some bottles see the squirrel store. A google search will probably find it. Problem is the time to ship anything to you after you find the problem instead of being prepared ahead of time. It's unlikely they will break anything glass. They are far from that strength if it's not breaking in your hand and especially if you can drop it on the floor with no damage which usually you can with glass droppers.
 
akane":3swelavq said:
For rabbit sized nipples which can go on syringes and some bottles see the squirrel store. A google search will probably find it. Problem is the time to ship anything to you after you find the problem instead of being prepared ahead of time. It's unlikely they will break anything glass. They are far from that strength if it's not breaking in your hand and especially if you can drop it on the floor with no damage which usually you can with glass droppers.


Oh this is perfect! I didn't even think about looking for squirrel feeding bottles! This greatly helped (as well as the rest of the information you provided) thank you!! It even said not to use the bottles from the pet store which may be why I'm not finding them to work well either. I'm going to look for an oral feeding syringe this evening.

sqFeedingTools.pg1-2.jpg

I found this website (Orphaned Wildlife Care and it had quite a few good tidbits including how to make that hole on the end of the blind nipples. I've just been chopping with my skinning razor knife, lol.
 
Those do work well...for awhile. The nipples don't last long once they start to grow a bit. They think they should eat them. :x

If you know a nurse ask them to get you some "piggybacks". They are used on I.V.s to attach a syringe to them to inject meds in the I.V. They have a rubber fitting on one end that slides right on a syringe and some I.V. tube. Cut it down to about 1 inch long and pitch the quick lock. There you go.

edit: the fingers are faster than the mind. :eek:
 
Quick update on the little wigglies.
We had another instance of (minor) bloating again the next day in most of the kits and I've determined it may be due to their core temp getting lowered from the formula not staying warm through the feedings. So I've started adding a hot/warm water bottle to one side of the box at the start of feeding, and then refreshing it after I've fed the last kit to help keep the nest area nice and warm when they come back with luke-warm bellies. I used to put warm/hot water in a pot, and then placing the bottle in the warm/hot water to get warmed, and then keeping it in there while I administer the formula with the dropper. Apparently the water is still cooling off too fast and by the 3rd kit it's pretty cool, so now I'm feeding them individually, heating back up the water, feeding another one, then heating back up the water, etc... Takes longer but we haven't seen bloat since this change.

I feel like we may be losing Scar-Belly (first one to get a name! Poor thing...) the little black kit that had a cut on his belly from momma's claws. He's still moving, and still alive, but yesterday and this morning he's just not interested in food, so I've been doing the drop-by-drop on his lips and then petting his head with my finger to get him to lick it off. He won't lick it off unless I pet him. :( It's not looking good. I probably fed him this way for a good hour last night and to be honest I was worried he'd be dead this morning. He's still alive! No change, still indifferent to the food though with patience I'm still getting some in. LIVE gosh dang it! :cry:
 
2CrazyFools":3o1lqk7d said:
I feel like we may be losing Scar-Belly (first one to get a name! Poor thing...) the little black kit that had a cut on his belly from momma's claws. He's still moving, and still alive, but yesterday and this morning he's just not interested in food, so I've been doing the drop-by-drop on his lips and then petting his head with my finger to get him to lick it off. He won't lick it off unless I pet him. :( It's not looking good. I probably fed him this way for a good hour last night and to be honest I was worried he'd be dead this morning. He's still alive! No change, still indifferent to the food though with patience I'm still getting some in. LIVE gosh dang it! :cry:

I’m so sorry to hear about Scar-Belly not doing too well. At least it sounds like the other kits are doing alright, though, which is good. Honestly, I’d say it’s pretty fantastic that you’re getting such good results so far even with the minor bloat. I know a few breeders that don’t bother trying to hand feed kits, so if there’s no mama to foster them to, they’re usually culled. So go Crazy, go! We’re all rooting for the little wigglers to make it past weaning for you!
:good-luck:
 
I culled scar-belly a little bit ago. :weep: I went to do mid-day feeding and he was completely unresponsive to formula on his mouth, even with my head strokes. I opened up the towel I had him wrapped in for feeding and he just sort of laid there, if you couldn't see his breathing you'd have thought he was already dead. I took him outside into the sun and he started moving around a little so I thought, "may I'll try again?" So I got the formula out but still nothing... finally I realized his neck was craning hard backwards and I believe he was about to die which was why he was moving around in the first place. Not because he was hungry. I went ahead and culled the poor little guy, just about broke my heart man. I know I process and eat these guys in the end, but it's harder when you're spending so much time hand feeding these cuties and knowing that nothing much is going to come from their death at this point in their lives. I feel good about raising my own food, giving it a wonderful beginning of life, knowing kindness, exercise, good food, etc... and then having a near-painless death and contributing to our wellbeing in the form of food. Purpose and all that. After culling this little guy the only purpose he went towards was a doggy snack. :(

On a happier note, one of the tan/fawn/blondies has an eye peeking out! :D Trying to concentrate on the living, sweet little guys. :love:
 
I'm so sorry for your loss. :cry:

You'll have to post some updated pictures of the remaining popples... if one's starting to open his little peepers, they must've grown a good bit since the last time we saw them!

You did the right thing, and I hope the heartache heals soon. I can't imagine how sad it must be to cull a little hand-fed babe. :encourage:
 
Ah, it's really hard, especially when you've worked so hard to give them a chance. :cry: Of course you feel bad . . . but I think you did the right thing for Scar-Belly.

I have to say, however, that I am in awe of how well you are doing with these kits! In most cases, kits that young that are deprived of a mother's milk are unlikely to survive more than a couple of days. Pat yourself on the back for doing an amazing job! :goodjob:

You would be doing a real service to your RT friends and rabbit-lovers everywhere if you could take notes as you go along: what formula you used, what worked, what needed tweaking, what you noticed along the way and adapted to the needs of these particular kits. If you, at some point, write it up, and post it -- with a link to this thread -- I can guarantee that I'll sticky it so we can easily find the information again when we need it.

:cheer1: :cheer2: :cheer1: :up: :bow: :clap: :clap2:
:mbounce: :greatjob: :mbounce:
 
Nymphadora":3lle0khd said:
You'll have to post some updated pictures of the remaining popples... if one's starting to open his little peepers, they must've grown a good bit since the last time we saw them!

You did the right thing, and I hope the heartache heals soon. I can't imagine how sad it must be to cull a little hand-fed babe. :encourage:

Thanks Nymph, the other babies sure helped that heartache dissipate in a timely manner, lol. They are just way too bloody cute! So, they do this thing where if I lean down to talk to them while they are in the towel or even breath on them they go nuts, trying to climb out of the towel or out of my hands onto my face. :lol: "Momma!" I don't think my breath smells that good, but thanks for the confidence booster kits.

I recorded a few feedings a couple days ago but have yet to edit them for upload, I'll do that today so y'all can giggle a bit at them. Adorable little crazies. Oh, I named another one... the biggest black baby is named Gaston, because he's loud and greedy! If I don't feed him fast enough (as I'm filling up the dropper again) he whines at me.

Here is a picture from yesterday, I haven't been able to get very many good ones recently but here's the blonde kit who is opening her eyes. Her eyes are both about 80% opened today but she keeps them closed mostly, only pops them open when I pick her up to feed and then closes them back once she's settled. I'm pretty sure she has no idea how to use them yet, but they are there! The others are getting bug-eyed so getting close too, Gaston has one starting to open at about 15-20% unglued, and the other blonde one is about 50% opened on both sides. Monday will be day 10 for them so a little ahead of schedule, but I think they were more developed in the womb than my previous litters were (who were pretty consistent at opening their eyes at day 11.) These guys seemed to get fur quicker as well.

Screen Shot 2017-03-25 at 12.19.56 PM.png

MaggieJ":3lle0khd said:
Ah, it's really hard, especially when you've worked so hard to give them a chance. :cry: Of course you feel bad . . . but I think you did the right thing for Scar-Belly.

I have to say, however, that I am in awe of how well you are doing with these kits! In most cases, kits that young that are deprived of a mother's milk are unlikely to survive more than a couple of days. Pat yourself on the back for doing an amazing job! :goodjob:

You would be doing a real service to your RT friends and rabbit-lovers everywhere if you could take notes as you go along: what formula you used, what worked, what needed tweaking, what you noticed along the way and adapted to the needs of these particular kits. If you, at some point, write it up, and post it -- with a link to this thread -- I can guarantee that I'll sticky it so we can easily find the information again when we need it.

:cheer1: :cheer2: :cheer1: :up: :bow: :clap: :clap2:
:mbounce: :greatjob: :mbounce:

Thanks Maggie! I couldn't have done this well without you guys providing wonderful support on the forum! I'll try and write something up that's concrete later.... you know, when they are weaned and survived, lol. I feel extremely confident about the remaining kits living though, they are growing, eyes opening, and very active little guys! Until then I'll try and keep this thread full of notes so that I can easily look back through it and find my conclusions. Oh, and I got the Bene-Bac in late Thursday so yesterday and today they've been on that instead of the goat antibiotic.



So one thing I tweaked is the frequency of feeding; I watched a youtube of a gentleman bottle feeding a kit and he said he only feeds them once a day because that's how often the mother feeds them, but I know from experience shelving litters that they get fed by MY does twice a day, morning and evening. I've heard a few does will only feed once a day but this does not seem to be consistent with my experience at all. So I started out feeding them formula as often as I would normally take the kits out for feeding from momma, and I think that was my FIRST mistake.

There is a BIG difference between mother's milk and this formula, and I shouldn't have overlooked it. When kits are getting milk from their mother, twice a day is more than plenty and the occasional once a day never hurt anyone. But this is NOT mother's milk and is not as compatible to their needs, going through them quicker and leaving less nutrients absorbed. In this case with formula they need more frequent feedings than they would have otherwise since this is not "quite" as good. I only started feeding them 3x a day once I noticed Scar-Belly fading out on me. I had noticed they were looking bonier, even with full bellies, but then I was also combatting bloat and didn't want to feed them too much. I felt a bit trapped, like, "I need to feed them more but if I do then they get bloat????"

So day 1-5 they were only getting fed 2x a day, morning and evening, and then on day 6 (Wednesday) when I initially noticed a decline in Scar-Belly did I up the amount of feeding times to 3x a day to hopefully get enough food in him to sustain his little life. I do wonder if I had started out 3x a day if he'd still be alive... but I'm not beating myself up over it. Life and learn.

Bottom line: I should have asked about how many times to feed them formula instead of just assuming it would be the same as I was used to. Formula milk =/= mother's milk.



Another thing I had briefly mentioned is the bloat and what I concluded caused it. At first I thought I overfed him, and he drank the formula too fast which caused it, but what I really think is he drank too much luke-warm/cool formula and lowered his body temp too much. Then being put back in with the rest of the kits, who had also drank the luke-warm/cool formula and their body temps were dropped as well, so the whole nest wasn't as warm as it should have been to help them digest. The next day when I experienced the bloat in most of the kits even when I was making SURE to slowly feed them and to not overfeed them did I realize what Maggie had warned me of previously in this topic:
MaggieJ":3lle0khd said:
Remember that kits can only digest milk or formula if they are warm to start with--they can't do it while still chilled. If they need two bottles, put one on one side of the box and the other at the top or bottom.
Now I have utilized her advice about the water bottles, and prior to starting feeding I have two small water bottles that I put hot water in and then place them at the bottom and the side of the nestbox, (they are not directly next to the kits, there is a blanket or towel layer in-between) and then I refresh those bottles with hot water when I am done with feeding. That way even if the formula has cooled off when they ingest it and they have a belly full of luke-warm liquid, they go into a nice and toasty nest box to sleep and digest their meals.

I have also taken to re-heating the water bath that the formula is sitting within after each individual kit feeding. Feed one, reheat water, feed one, reheat water, this way the formula never gets too cold on them. Since doing this we have had zero instance of bloat :cool: (and the kits love those water bottles! Cuddling up right in the corner of them, lol.)

Bottom line: Keep those babies warm! ... and listen to people who know more about rabbits than you do, lol.



Oh! One last thing... I have so many different types of bottles/nipples and syringes to feed these guys with and the best one for these kits? The dang glass dropper from Walmart. :roll: I tried the luer lock syringe (because I had one) and that was just way too messy. The luer slip syringe worked "okay" but it didn't fit into the mouth of my milk container, still probably my second favorite. I picked up some feeding syringes (curved tips) from my local vet but they are really too large for rabbits and the formula slides out too fast even with minor pressure, thankfully they were free! I expected to purchase them but they just gave them to me, so no loss there. The kitten bottle / nipple system was too unwieldy at this point, the long thin nipple attachment was the right size, but it was too long and bent away when the kit tried to grab it. The regular kitten nipples were a good size, but too large. I feel I will probably end up switching to this bottle and nipple once the kits are older and have larger mouthes. There are two glass droppers that come in a pack at Walmart (or CVS/Walgreens), one is a straight feed and the other is angled, I think I prefer the straight.... but both works just as well and my kits seems to do best on them though I am worried about the glass aspect of it. What if they break as the kit is feeding? What if the kit chips a tooth? But so far it's their (and my) favorite vehicle for formula.



Currently I am using the formula outlined by Homer in this thread but halving the recipe. (1/4th cup goats milk, half an egg yolk, 1/4th tsp corn syrup, 1/2tsp colostrum, 16th tsp probiotic)
 
Excellent information, Crazy! (Hope you don't mind the shortened name!) The blonde kit looks real good!

You have a gift for observation and adapting what you see to what you need to do. :yes:
 
MaggieJ":2o9elks6 said:
Excellent information, Crazy! (Hope you don't mind the shortened name!) The blonde kit looks real good!

You have a gift for observation and adapting what you see to what you need to do. :yes:
We're all a little bit Crazy ;D Shortly after registering with this username did I realize what my nickname would quickly become, lol.
Well thank you Maggie! I'm just thrilled they are doing so well at this point, especially after reading a statistics on how many kits live at this point when being formula fed... :shock:

Here's the youtube I mentioned, you've got a blonde kit for the first two minutes and then a black kit for the remaining. I think the black kit is Gaston, but I can't recall. You can see at the start of this video the blonde kit won't come out of the towel for me to feed so I tried to entice her with the scent of the milk, which didn't work, so then I lightly blew on her and out she popped! :lol:
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xDpZBKHeGIE[/youtube] <br /><br /> -- Sun Mar 26, 2017 10:48 am -- <br /><br /> Got a picture of the blonde with her eyes open for you Nymph. :love:
Screen Shot 2017-03-26 at 10.47.44 AM.png
 

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