Help

[Bun]

My kits are now 3 days old, the smallest of the litter always kept trying to crawl away from its brother or sister of the litter, i woke up yesterday and it was completely away from the other 2. It must have missed its feed that morning as its tummy wasnt as round but this morning its tummy was nice and round. But unfortunately i've gone out this evening to find it dead. When ive gone to bury it it had a slight green around its nostril.. i've checked the other two (which seem nice and round) and they have it too.

I am super worried((( Do they have a disease.. Do i deep clean and make a fresh nest? wipe the green of there nostrils?? What do i do?!

 

[Dood]

What type of bedding are they in?

 

[Bun]

lightly sprinkled sawdust on the bottom for absorbent, but majority is shredded newspaper + soft hay and obviously the mothers fur. - The hay does have green strands in also?

 

[Prisma]

I have never had good results with sawdust, the small particles plug their noses. Bigger wood shavings do okay. Maybe it got its nose plugged? What kind of nest box do you have them in as well? Should be just big enough for the doe to get in and turn around to get out, any bigger and they can crawl easily out away from each other and scatter to chill. I hope the other 2 do well for you.

 

[Bun]

The nest box is only big enough for the doe to get in and turn around. Do you think it could be the sawdust? I did only use a small amount. One breeder has said its completely normal and just dust that collects around the nostrils. Its quite late at night now so i don't want to bother the other two again, i only picked the little one up as i wanted a picture of the nostrils to show people what i meant. Do you think its worth me giving it a gentle wipe tomorrow? If so what with. Thank you i hope they do well too, its my first time breeding so as you can tell i'm worrying but i suppose there is not much you can do apart from hope they do well.

 

[Miss M]

Does the breeder use sawdust?

I've seen stuff like that around kit nostrils only when there's been a problem, and only a couple of times. I would not consider it normal.

I would remove the sawdust (it doesn't take much in the way of small particles to cause respiratory problems in tiny kits), and if it were me I'd replace the other bedding to make sure most of the sawdust is gone. You'll need to keep the fur, obviously.

I'd gently wipe their noses with a damp cloth or cotton ball. Not wet, because they'd be able to get water up their noses. Just gently stroke the stuff off.

 

[Bun]

Thank you !I did the above! Fingers crossed for these two babies.

 

[Stephanie]

For nest box absorbency, I use several layers of cardboard, and then a good amount of hay. After a litter, I throw the cardboard out and replace for the next litter. I can get all the cardboard I want from work, where we get 4 X 8 sheets of it. Half of what comes in at work gets throw away.

 

[Easy Ears]

The green is most likely from the hay. When I had my rabbits in tractor cages my first year of raising them, my doe pulled fresh grass as bedding and once it dried she added fur as well. I cleaned the kits noses everyday because they would get plugged up by dirt and green crust. Never had one die from it though. I'm guessing this kit died because it didn't get fed, that or it got chilled. I noticed once I switched over to hay the litters following were quite a bit cleaner. Until last year when I had some flaky hay (bottom of the bale) in the nest box and the kits seemed to have dirty noses, until I changed out the hay (same bale, just bigger pieces).

 

[bigfoot_158]

I know I am new to the rabbit thing. But here my take on it. First thing is if you dont know then ask on this very friendly forum. From what I have read rabbits dont do well with any kind of dust that why my j feeder has a screen. The people here have been a great resource to me. I have no reason to doubt their word. This post my seem harsh but it not intended that way. Take it with a grain of salt. :bunnyhop: :bunnyhop: :bunnyhop: :bunnyhop: