more advice needed - urgent now

As per my other thread ..... Crystle had 3 babies on Fri ( I wasn't aware she was pregnant ). One was dead at back of cage, the other 2 she had placed in a nest. Anyway, I was concerned she was not feeding them and after looking at a picture of what a newborn kit should look like after its been fed I realised that this was indeed true. So, I intervened and placed the kits on her to feed. She allowed me to do this, but was not happy and the following day she was quite distressed about it, so I decided not to do this anymore. One of the babies is very small and runty and I suspect it might have the double dwarf gene. When I squeezed Crystle's nipples this morning I could only get milk from one nipple, although it may be my lack of technique thats the problem. Tonight, the runty baby is very weak and shriveled looking ,so she hasn't fed it at all. The larger baby is crying for food and doesn't look as if its been fed either.

Please someone help us .... I don't know what to do. Does anyone have Sarah Elliotts - Sarazels - phone number ?. She is the nearest breeder to me and may be able to help.

bump i would seek a vet to get some kind of rabbit formula and hand rear them if the babies genuinly arent being fed. i hope someone who has had kits can help soon good luck xx

***** PLEASE ****** must be someone who can help us.

I hand fed Phoebe on a special kitten/puppy milk twice a day!

Heck.. I've no experience, so can't give any constructive advice. Perhaps you should just leave it up to nature and hope that the mother will feed the bigger baby tonight..don't they normally do it just once a day..perhaps you being around is upsetting her? She may well ignore the runt anyway as that's how nature works to weed out the weakest. I feel for you..you must feel so helpless.

Sorry I can't really help but a friend was told to feed her babies goats milk when their mum died. They were a couple of weeks old though.

Good luck, I hope mum starts feeding them soon.

The only thing I can suggest is to attempt to feed the Kits yourself using full fat goats milk. If Mum is not feeding them and you cant get them to a surrogate Doe then I fear its their only hope.A kitten giver set would be ideal if the kits will actually suckle. Otherwise its a 1ml syringe but you'll need to only give the milk one tiny drop at a time to try to minimise the risk of them aspirating it. The odds are totally against the Kits but you could try. You will need to stimulate them to toilet after a feed. Just gently massage around their genitals with a cotton wool pad.

Firstly, i have no experience with baby rabbits. However, we had premature baby guinea pigs who didn't make it just a couple of weeks ago. I have been doing a bit of research since, as i feel if i have learnt something out of the experience some good has come out of it.

Get lactol from your pet shop. PAH does it, a lot of other pet shops will do too, they also do small bottles with teats. A dropper, from any local pharmacist would also work. Should cost less then a tenner for the lot. The Lactol is in tins, in powder form (I think they might also do cartons in milk form). It is sold for dogs and cats, and is likely to be in that section in the pet shop. For guinea pigs, i was reccommended to use half the powder to milk ratio suggested on the pack for kittens.

Our babies were too weak to latch on to mummy, and so her milk dried up.

Green leafy veg is supposed to be good to held maintain milk production.

best of luck, hope all goes well :wave:

Can I recommend adding probiotic to the feeds to help with gut flora? Also a good handrearing site I read suggested a spoonful of double cream into the milk to help make it more wholesome.

The milk will need to be warmed to body temperature and the babies will need to be kept warm....kits cannot self-regulate at such a tender age.

Ive used Lactol(?) to rear kittens and baby rats before. Vets and pet shops should sell it but vets are your best bet. for now to keep them alive use warm water with a little glucose or sugar dissolved in it? until you can get to a vet thats all i can suggest. try and go asap.

I don't know how much use cow milk is in the very short term? Ive never tried it, but if it will keep them alive? Heck, even coffe whitener made into a liquid might do until morning! :shock:

Siona said:

I don't know how much use cow milk is in the very short term? Ive never tried it, but if it will keep them alive? Heck, even coffe whitener made into a liquid might do until morning! :shock:

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Goats milk is a far better alternative and can be purchased in most supermarkets.

Sooz22 said:

Goats milk is a far better alternative and can be purchased in most supermarkets.

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Definitely, but I mean in emergency at this time of night if you don't have any in. I really need a cupboard of 'just in case' stuff..... and a bigger house! :lol:
The vet substitute feed is best though isn't it?

I've read about breeding, all I can say is that for baby bunnies you could use a kitten formula if the mother isn't feeding them, and hand-rear them. Goats milk also works.

Siona said:

Definitely, but I mean in emergency at this time of night if you don't have any in. I really need a cupboard of 'just in case' stuff..... and a bigger house! :lol:
The vet substitute feed is best though isn't it?

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Some people swear by Goats Milk and wont use anything else.

Im sure there must still be supermarkets open at this time of night, my local Tesco express is open until 12 and it stocks goats milk.

You should be able to get some goats milk somewhere, you could try garages as they are usually open quite late.
Is there an ASDA near you? Mine is open for all of the day except for 2 hours or something.
Hope you can get something soon!

we succesfully reared babies by putting them on mum to feed i think it was twice a day ...but would have to check with tracey ...

we housed them seperate to mum .

The runty baby is very weak and unable to suckle at all. I put the bigger baby on mum just now and it sucked heartily for about 10 mins and then fell asleep. I am not sure if she is still producing milk though, I couldn't get any out of her nipples this morning. The baby looked fat and froggy after it had suckled, but would it have just sucked in a load of air if there was no milk ? It sucked for about 10 mins and then lost interest and went straight to sleep when I put it back in the nest.

Just been talking to someone who is handrearing a litter and she has said how incredibly difficult it is - out of 5 babies she now has 2 left and one of those is looking a bit sickly . Her advice was to leave alone and let nature take its course with the runty one. Maybe Crystle knows there is something wrong with it and has rejected it. I just don't know enough about rabbit mums and their kits. I will leave things as they are tonight, just check before I go to bed and then see how things are in the morning. I am in such a state at the moment I'm not much good to anyone. We have a supermarket that I can get goats milk from and I have lactol in the house.

Thnx for all the replies ... I just feel so useless and helpless at not being able to do more.

I agree with letting nature take its course. Usually Mum knows best and if she has fed the larger baby tonight then she has milk. Keep her warm and well stocked with hay. I tried to hand-rear some babies from 10 days old and at 7 weeks they all began sneezing and eventually my vet had to pts all of them. I was heartbroken. If your two babies were only born Friday I feel you have no chance of rearing them successfully. I am sorry it is not a happier time for you. The best thing you can do is give the best care to mum.

I cannot tell if she fed the baby or if it just sucked in a lot of air. It looked fat and froggy and seemed contented, but I cannot tell if its rounded belly was milk or air. I couldn't get any milk out of Crystle this morning, but maybe I didn't do it correctly when I squeezed. Her nipples look normal to me.

Luciuslop said:

I cannot tell if she fed the baby or if it just sucked in a lot of air. It looked fat and froggy and seemed contented, but I cannot tell if its rounded belly was milk or air. I couldn't get any milk out of Crystle this morning, but maybe I didn't do it correctly when I squeezed. Her nipples look normal to me.

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If it was latched on properly it wouldnt be sucking air. I think I'd be inclined to keep helping out if mum will let you and not rejecting the kitt afterwards... maybe she just doesnt know what shes doing???