help with new born kits

Hi new here after a suprise yesterday to find babys in the cage (i was told they were both females by the pet shop i could have sworn so too) i removed the male and two dead kits there are a further 4 live kits left the mother too it i have checked the kits again this morning but it appears they have not been fed there tummies are wrinkly rather than podged although they are warm and very active . The mother is very freindly so whilst holding her i offered a kit up to her and the kit immediatly started to suckle although quickly lost intrest. I have offered the mother some green veg as i have read it helps milk production .Is there anything else i should do and how long do i leave it before i intervine again.Should i try offering another kit up to her will this help stimulate milk or help her to feed. Sorry for so many questions in one go.

I dont have any experience of kits but from what I have read on here I think the most important thing is to remove the male and check that the nest is ok. All the kits should be in the nest to keep them warm- if any have fallen out I think you need to put them back in. I dont think it is encouraged to help out with feeding untill it is vital- mum will only feed them around twice a day anyways so I would give her a few hours to see if she does it on her own.

Hopefully someone will be along soon with some advice!

bump

cant offer any help sorry but hopefully someone else can :wave:

The risk you are running by holding babies under mum is if they are starving they can suck too fast and inhale the milk onto their lungs and drown.if mum made a nest leave them in it and keep ay eye on them,if they are just born she just may not have fed them yet.she may have felt unable to feed them if dad was in the cage.

The mum may feed anytime up to 36 hours after birth. When they have eaten they will look like they have swallowed ping pong balls.

Are they in a nest box?

Something you can do is stand mum over the nest, and feed her greens to keep her calm and still, and they should suckle. They will only suckle for a couple of minutes and should get enough. If mum is not feeding them herself then you can try and get her to help them two or three times a day.

If that does not work you can take mum out, and turn her over, and someone else can hold a kit to her nipple. this can be dangerous and definitely needs more than one person to do.

Supplementing should be a very last resort, so try everything else you can first.

If the buck was in there with her after she gave birth then you may find she is pregnant again because they want it most in the 72 hours after they give birth, so count 31 days on your calendar from now just so you can be prepared in case she is pregnant again.

There is a thread in the Rabbit Welfare bit called something like Ebay bunny gives birth. I wrote a really long psot on there and other people offered help too so that might be worth reading.

thanks for the replies i have left them to it for now i removed the male as soon as we found that she must have been a he i have marked the calander for 31 days time must rename the rabbit now as molly just seems wrong for a boy!!!.
The kits are still active and the mum is occasionally going and sniffing at the nest box i moved them into ( i moved them in the nest she had made so they didnt crawl to far away) so she seems interested i suppose it just time now to see what happens over night tonight.

Thanks again for your help and i will read that thread you mentioned i will keep you all updated

fantastaic news just seen the mummy bunny in the nesting box and i now have 4 very fat and sleepy little kits she also groomed then whilst she fed them so hopefully all will be well now .Thanks again for all the help great friendly forum with loads of good advise

That's fantastic. Sounds like she knows exactly what she needs to do

She might only feed them once a day, and might also ignore them a lot, so try not to panic if she doesn't seem maternal. Just keep and eye and check the nest regularly

will do i was just getting a bit concerned that she might not be producing milk no worries of that now they look like they might explode if they had any more and thanks

It can take a while for her to produce it, but she is now doing that, which is great Sounds like all is going well.