Doe wont feed or pull hair

Rabbit Talk  Forum

Help Support Rabbit Talk Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

Kinipela

Active member
Joined
Oct 30, 2016
Messages
31
Reaction score
0
I need help. This is my first litter with my doe that is her first litter. I made a nesting box for her and she started to pull a little hair not very much. Next morning she gave birth to 3 kits. One died and the other 2 are still alive. However They are still super thin and I don't think she is feeding them. They dug a deep hole in nesting box so I don't know if they can crawl out to feed. Is there anyway to tell if they are feeding? What should I do about there not being any hair in box can I add something to keep them warm.
Also is it possible the box I built isn't wide enough or to deep. Is there an alternative I can do. maybe hay on ground>?
 
unfortunately it's quite common for first-time does to lose litters due to inexperience. there are lots of things you can do to help their chances though!

how long ago did she give birth? sometimes it takes a couple days for the doe's milk to come in fully. this is a survival mechanism to help ensure she doesn't get mastitis in case of losing the litter in the first few days. she may make only a tiny bit of milk - enough to keep them alive for a few days until her hormones are sure they are going to live. if it's been more than three days though, there's not much you can do unless you have another doe with a similarly aged litter to foster them to. this is why most breeders will breed an experienced doe alongside a virgin doe just in case. you can tell if a kit has eaten if its belly is fat and isn't wrinkled. a kit that hasn't eaten will be a little thin and wrinkly. there is a sticky thread at the top of this forum that has pretty good photos of what they look like.


as for the fur, you can gently pluck fur from her sides and belly to cover the kits with yourself. you could also groom her with a slicker type brush that catches the loose fur into clumps and you can give those to the babies. i have one doe that had a crazy moult in the summer and i saved the fur i brushed off of her in a jar and it proved very valuable when a doe kindled on a warm night (and didn't pull much fur because of it,) then the temperatures dropped the next day. the does don't seem to care much if the fur isn't theirs either. the kits likely dug into the nest box to try and get warmer. they can also dig to the top too if they get too warm, so i wouldn't worry about them not being able to nurse because they dug down. they're pretty good at finding mom when she comes to the box.

you can also try turning the doe over and holding a kit to her and seeing if you can get it to feed, though it's a pretty unnatural position for them both so there's various levels of success. holding the doe over the nest seems to work better, but it only really helps if she has milk. unfortunately hand-feeding rabbit kits doesn't have a high success rate, so sometimes nature just takes its course :( the good news is 90% of the time the doe does much better with her second litter.

good luck!
 
thank you very much. Great advise. The kits were born Sunday morning around 1 am. I didn't know it can take a few days for the milk to come in so maybe I'm just stressing out. I was looking for photos everywhere so I will go check out the ones you are talking about. I did lay her upside down last night and let them feed off her for about 10 minutes each one and again today. Is that long enough for each time? I will cut some of her hair to help out
 

Latest posts

Back
Top