Recent content by Sarah Walmsley

Also as an aside, for anyone interested a video of our 21 old day kits healthy and thriving

That is so interesting. I’m a bit of a newbie with breeding and both my does were totally different in their approach to nursing kits. My first doe nursed twice a day once around 11pm and once early morning between 5-6am. We had them inside at the time and could hear the commotion when she went...

Yes, I read about this technique on another post and tried it. I pulled the 3 biggest who were obviously getting fed. I did it on 3 separate occasions obviously on alternate nights so the big ones did get fed and it worked beautifully. The little ones got stronger and caught up. They are all 16...

I’m pretty new at this but this has been our experience 1) in terms of handling the kits as newborns : mom knows your smell so she wouldn’t be afraid to have your smell on her babies. Your handling them would not be the reason she killed / ate them. Sometimes if the kits are deformed/ injured...

So update, kits are doing well in a nest box in the middle but mom didn’t feed then last night or this morning. All had empty wrinkly bellies. As I was checking them our doe ran up to the top portion. It was cool here mid morning so I placed the kits up there with her and closed the door and she...

Thanks for the advice. I’ve moved them from the top to the middle section in a nest box as everyone suggested. We’ll see how it goes. Fingers crossed 🤞🏻

Thanks for the advice. It's cooled off a bit so I put them back in the top for the night and I'll see about moving them tomorrow to the bottom or inside. Just hoping that mom will feed them tonight. It's been a stressful day for everyone. We tried to put a kit on her belly to see if we could get...

Hi everyone! It's been a while since I've posted on here. Our doe had a litter of kits early this morning. She's been a great mom so far, very attentive. Had 8 kits all were alive and thriving this morning. She didn't have a nest box, it 's a bit hard to describe but she has a 3 story hutch. The...

We will definitely keep that in mind for the future and will keep a close eye. I think you’re right in that she may have been hiding some other underlying problem. Unfortunately there are not many rabbit saavy vets near us, they’re very expensive and not very knowledgeable about rabbits. The vet...

Thanks for the advice! We have continued with pellets, hay, dry oats and a just a bit of the greens they were nibbling on all along, and they seem to be doing quite well so far. We don’t have another rabbit we can safely put them with unfortunately. There are 6 kits from this litter and they all...

Update: The doe died last night Thanks everyone for the advice. We did all we could, where in Canada there are not a lot of vets that treat rabbits, and the ones that do, are not super rabbit-saavy. We did the belly massages and semithicone but it was too late. We were away for 3 days on...

Looking for advice on how to care for our 4 week old kits. The dam died last night of what we think was bloat in spite of a trip to the vet. The vet didn’t think she was nursing anymore (which we suspected) she weaned them early. And we had already started to feed the kits timothy hay, alfalfa...

Hi everyone! Looking for some advice. Our doe suddenly stopped eating and pooping its been over 24 hours now. She’s super lethargic and not doing well. we took her to the vet, he gave us some pain medication and some critical care supplement but she refuses to have it. We managed to syringe...

It helps to know that other rabbits are doing the same thing. They definitely don’t seen like they are lacking. Hard to tell about their bellies, they have a lot of fur there now. I will try to take a closer look tomorrow. They are starting to eat mom’s pellets, dry oats and alfalfa and timothy...

Hi MaggieJ, Thanks for the advice. She does have a shelf in the cage for that purpose but prefers to lounge on the floor of the cage. I will put in some grass hay and oats out as you suggested as they are already starting to nibble at her feed. Hopefully this will help them to be less demanding...