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baby kits...urgent!

Q

qwertyuiop

Young Bun
my friends rabbit gave birth to 3 babies yesterday, 2 of them are doing great, feeding etc, but the 3rd the mother keeps seperating from the rest and will not feed it. I have attempted to feed it lactol and have tried putting it on the mothers teat but it will not take any. It is very thin and weak, just wondered what is the best thing to do??
 
someone really experienced will probably reply hehe, but when we had a similar experience, we used tiny syringes and goats milk... he wont latch?
good luck
xox
 
I would take it to the vet to be PTS rather than let it die of starvation - there must be something wrong with it and it's very unlikely to survive :(
 
In these cases mum knows best, she perhaps knows something is wrong. Personally I would put the baby back in the nest and see what happens overnight. Trying to hand-rear is not really an option.
 
Handrearing from such a young age is very unlikely to succeed. You can try getting him to latch on whilst you hold mum.

What exactly do you mean by separate? Are you finding him out of the nest? Mother rabbits can't pick up their babies, if they are out of the nest its usually because they got accidentally dragged out whilst latched on suckling. In which case he probably refused to eat cos he was full. Put him back in the nest with the others.

Does he look any different? If he's not feeding he'll be dehydrated and look small and wrinkly compared to the others. If he doesn't then he's feeding.

Tam
 
hes small and wrinkly...but iv been putting him on the mum and hes been feeding well and filling up nicely! if i dont do that he doesnt feed.

when i say away from the others i mean hes on one side of the nesting box in his own little nest and the other 2 are on the other side.

only other problem now is that the mum now only has 2 teats with milk :? she had more the other day and im wondering if shes drying up? she had a litter last year, and got ill a week after the birth and all her milk dried up. I successfully hand reared her 6 babies from a week old. its just these are alot younger, so its more worrying.
 
Best milk is mums so latching him on is the best option. If her milk production does go down more you can always supliment all the kits slightly that way they are still all getting the benefit of mum.

Tam
 
do you think its worth starting to supplement him and/or the others now?! and i dont know whether a trip to the vets for the mum would be necessary just so she doesnt get ill again?!
 
It might be worth chatting to your vet over the phone to see if there is anything they can do before you go through the stress of a vet trip.

I've heard some breeders recommend a water bottle full of lactol for the mum to support milk production.

I guess three is a relatively small number I don't know if being down to two teats is a normal thing or not.

If he's filling out now and the others look fine they I'd probably just monitor closely and supliment if it becomes necessary.

Tamsin
 
well he only fills out when i give him a feed, which i did last night and tonight. inbetween he goes all skinny. should i do it more often? i dont wanna do it more than necessary incase it stresses the mother.

and if i do supplement...what is the correct ratio of lactol and water? for the mother and the babies.
 
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