Babies not getting any food?...

[Silver Willow]

Willows litter is now two weeks old, and I've noticed that as they have gotten older she hasn't been feeding them much, if at all? I'm pretty sure she fed one or two of them this morning but all the rest are quite thin now and I'm getting a bit worried. Should I start to step in a bit and feed them? If so, would they need some sort of a formula made up for them or just start feeding them bits of solids? She seems to be finding it a bit hard having 7 of them- I'm actually quite surrprised that they all lived! Any help/ideas appreciated

 

[Zass]

I can only say what I would do in a similar situation.

My first step would be to place some nice soft hay and oats right in the nestbox. (probably a bit of mashed pumpkin too, but I'm still experimenting with that and very small kits, I wouldn't recommend it to anyone else yet)

Of course, supplementing food will not work if the doe steps on the kits or harms them digging to get the oats though, so I add the same goodies for her elsewhere in the cage.
I'd check her out to make sure her teats are alright and she has enough milk.
If her milk supply is good and she's simply not nursing, there are ways to hold the doe to allow nursing, but what works best really depends on the doe.

 

[MaggieJ]

I agree with Zass. I would like to suggest, however, that if you plan to supplement with solid foods that the kits may also need water, depending on how much milk they are still getting. You don't want them getting dehydrated. An alternative is to soak the oatmeal with warm water or goat's milk and offer it in a small shallow dish. This is what I did when I had to hand-feed a 17 day old kit. a tiny pinch of brown sugar (really tiny) may act as an attractant so that they try the mush more quickly.

 

[Silver Willow]

Ok, thanks for your replys
What do you mean by oat meal? As in pellets, or just plain oats?
That's funny about the goats milk thing, one of our goats just started to get her milk in about 3-4 months ago- would this be fine to use?

Thanks again

 

[akane]

Goat's milk is fine to use. You can soak the pellets in it and plain oatmeal from the grocery store. Rolled oats from the feed store are the same thing as oatmeal just not as heavily screened but then you have to buy a huge bag of it.

 

[Silver Willow]

I think I'll go try that now... Thanks!