Need Help with New Litter!

[Silver Willow]

So my tiny wee Netherland Dwarf doe (Dinky) that I posted about a few days ago, kindled last night. I found two kits in a nest with hardly any fur this morning, and as they were cold and lifeless looking I left them there to be disposed of a little later.

I remembered a thing I read not too long ago about chilled kits though, and thought I'd better go make double sure they were dead. Well... you can kinda guess what happened next :roll: I managed to warm one of the two up, and it's alive. But very very thin and wrinkled looking, so I don't think it's been fed at all.

I tried bring mumma bunny inside by the fire to give it a feed and try keep it warm- bad idea. Dinky is very... highly strung, so she wasn't having a bar of it. And just now I've put baby back in the nest with some added Angora and Alpaca wool, but other then sniffing the box Dinky just isn't interested.

It's so disappointing! Her last litter was two Peanuts (DOA) and a normal kit (which we still have), and she was the best wee mum ever! But now she seems completely uninterested in looking after the kit. If he/she doesn't feed soon there's no way it'll make it.

What should I do??

 

[hotzcatz]

Rabbit mums stay away from the nest to keep predators from finding it. So, warm up the kit (which you did) put it in the nest and hope that she will accept wool from alpacas and other rabbits as acceptable nesting materials. Leave her alone and hope she feeds the kit.

Some folks have hand raised kits from newborns, but unless the babies get the colostrum milk from their mum, they generally don't thrive as adults. It's usually quicker to just rebreed the doe, but this is coming from more of a commercial rabbit standpoint and not a pet rabbit standpoint.

 

[Silver Willow]

Yeah, I just thought she might be a bit more interested in the little guy after how obsessive she was last time.

I'm not sure if it's helpful or not, but we had some colostrum left over from some lambs. So I heated some and managed to get about 1/2 a drop in him at most. He's in the nest at the moment, so hopefully he'll get a feed later on!

So would you rebreed the doe even if there's still a runt? We do breed mostly for pets at the moment, but are (slowly) working our way to show standard. Just takes a while when you end up buying so many dud rabbits to start off with
I do really need some more babies soon though... we were meant to have two litters right now, but turns out my other doe missed. So if this one doesn't make it, would you just rebreed her?

 

[LittleFluffyBunnies]

If she loses the kit or doesn't raise it, and she is still a healthy weight, go ahead and rebreed her.

 

[Silver Willow]

Well the kit is dead. I think it was just too cold, even with the added nesting material. A bit disappointing- this is the first time we've lost an entire litter before.

I might just wait a few weeks for her to get a bit more conditioned before I rebreed her. Thanks for both of your help though! It's nice to have somewhere to go for advice