Shara
Well-known member
I recently had an enlightening experience with a litter. My NZ doe kindled nine days ago. I have an indoor colony, and one of my does killed off my NZ's first litter. She attacked them again, the second litter, and I removed the five surviving kits. I brought my NZ and the kits into the house in the hopes that she would rear them with no issues, now that she was out of that setting. What happened instead, was that she abandoned them. I tried for a day to get her to take them, and she wouldn't.
So I decided to try and raise the litter myself.
Tip #1: Keep those babies warm! A litter full may be able to do it themselves, but check and make sure they are warm to the touch. When mine began dying, the first symptom I noticed was that they could not stay warm. Keeping them warm did not keep them alive, but it is something to look for.
Tip #2: If you can, get a rabbit to feed those kits. Even if you have to flip a doe, the rates of survival in kits fed a formula is abysmal. The milk has everything they need, in the proportions they need it, and has a perfect delivery system. There is no chance that a kit will aspirate if it is nursing, but the risk is pretty high if you are trying to feed it yourself.
If mom dies and you have no other lactating does, or baby just isn't getting what it needs from mom, I found this homemade rabbit formula recipe, which claims better success than KMR. My kit wouldn't take it, so I have no idea how well it works, but there are rabbit raisers who have used it and the kits survived, although they showed signs of having been malnourished as adults. I can't find the link right now, but here is the recipe:
Rabbit Formula Recipe
1/2 cup evaporated milk
1/2 cup water
1 egg yolk
1 Tablespoon corn syrup
Mix well, heat to body temp. Feed the formula slowly, as rabbits can aspirate easily. DO NOT force the food in their mouths. If they breathe it in, they will likely get pneumonia and die within a few days.
I did not have a dropper, and still had mom, so I decided to flip mom and allow her kits to nurse.
Tip #3: ALWAYS remember to potty your kits. I didn't realize this was needed, and on day three, four of the five kits died. The remaining kit I was careful to always potty, but it didn't always go, and I believe that was a sign of the kit not getting enough milk. Once the rest of the litter died, I had a much harder time getting milk into the baby, and believe it was a combination of factors, stemming from the fact that the rest were gone.
It is very easy to potty your kits, although it can be frustrating. All you need is warm water, a cotton ball (I just used soft fabric) and to rub the baby's genitals and lower belly gently until they pee. Be caerful! It comes out in a LONG stream. And it doesn't smell pretty either. I never was able to get my kit to poo, but when I watched him, I noticed he was pooing on his own.
Tip #4: I had better success getting my lonely only to feed if I was irritating and annoying him. There will be a video of the process I used. Basically, I tried to simulate a litter full of bunnies kicking and squirming for a nipple. It did seem to make him suck harder and get more milk than he had been.
The morning of day nine, I awoke to a chilled baby, when he had been doing fine with the fur in his nest. I warmed him up and tried to get food into him, but he would not nurse. I put him out of his misery. Sadly, I think that I didn't start the body stimulation early enough, and think that if I had done that from the beginning, he would have been more likely to not have gotten thin in the first place, as once he got thin, he never seemed to have enough strength to nurse until he had a full tummy. His life was short and sad, but it is my hope that my experience can help others who find themselves with a baby to care for.
I would appreciate any other tips and tricks others may have learned in their own rabbit raising experiences!
So I decided to try and raise the litter myself.
Tip #1: Keep those babies warm! A litter full may be able to do it themselves, but check and make sure they are warm to the touch. When mine began dying, the first symptom I noticed was that they could not stay warm. Keeping them warm did not keep them alive, but it is something to look for.
Tip #2: If you can, get a rabbit to feed those kits. Even if you have to flip a doe, the rates of survival in kits fed a formula is abysmal. The milk has everything they need, in the proportions they need it, and has a perfect delivery system. There is no chance that a kit will aspirate if it is nursing, but the risk is pretty high if you are trying to feed it yourself.
If mom dies and you have no other lactating does, or baby just isn't getting what it needs from mom, I found this homemade rabbit formula recipe, which claims better success than KMR. My kit wouldn't take it, so I have no idea how well it works, but there are rabbit raisers who have used it and the kits survived, although they showed signs of having been malnourished as adults. I can't find the link right now, but here is the recipe:
Rabbit Formula Recipe
1/2 cup evaporated milk
1/2 cup water
1 egg yolk
1 Tablespoon corn syrup
Mix well, heat to body temp. Feed the formula slowly, as rabbits can aspirate easily. DO NOT force the food in their mouths. If they breathe it in, they will likely get pneumonia and die within a few days.
I did not have a dropper, and still had mom, so I decided to flip mom and allow her kits to nurse.
Tip #3: ALWAYS remember to potty your kits. I didn't realize this was needed, and on day three, four of the five kits died. The remaining kit I was careful to always potty, but it didn't always go, and I believe that was a sign of the kit not getting enough milk. Once the rest of the litter died, I had a much harder time getting milk into the baby, and believe it was a combination of factors, stemming from the fact that the rest were gone.
It is very easy to potty your kits, although it can be frustrating. All you need is warm water, a cotton ball (I just used soft fabric) and to rub the baby's genitals and lower belly gently until they pee. Be caerful! It comes out in a LONG stream. And it doesn't smell pretty either. I never was able to get my kit to poo, but when I watched him, I noticed he was pooing on his own.
Tip #4: I had better success getting my lonely only to feed if I was irritating and annoying him. There will be a video of the process I used. Basically, I tried to simulate a litter full of bunnies kicking and squirming for a nipple. It did seem to make him suck harder and get more milk than he had been.
The morning of day nine, I awoke to a chilled baby, when he had been doing fine with the fur in his nest. I warmed him up and tried to get food into him, but he would not nurse. I put him out of his misery. Sadly, I think that I didn't start the body stimulation early enough, and think that if I had done that from the beginning, he would have been more likely to not have gotten thin in the first place, as once he got thin, he never seemed to have enough strength to nurse until he had a full tummy. His life was short and sad, but it is my hope that my experience can help others who find themselves with a baby to care for.
I would appreciate any other tips and tricks others may have learned in their own rabbit raising experiences!
