help needed

:wave:hi guys newbie my name is leeann and im needing a wee bit advice to cut a long story short i have a wee lop doe who has just had kits she only had 3 but rejected 1 of the kits who seemed to arrive a long time after its siblings i found the kit cold on the bottom of the hutch vet advised to put it aside and allow it to pass only 2 hours later it was still here and again 2 hours after that so i thought well if u r gonna make the effort so iam i kit is now 4 days old living in a wee box on a heat pad and drinking goats milk quite happily i fully do NOT expect the little thing to survive but im tryin my hardest to help him can anyone give me any advice on how much of the milk and how often he should b having a wee drink i know mum only feeds once or twice but ive been kinda tryin to do it every three to 5 hours any advice would b great

http://forums.rabbitrehome.org.uk/s...Let-me-know-what-you-think-)&highlight=babies have a read of this thread and you will find out a lot of information about accidental litters.

Have you tried holding the baby up against mum so it can drink directly off her. Normally they only feed once a day which is normally at night.

Do you know if mum is feeding this baby at all?

lolliepop1979 said:

:wave:hi guys newbie my name is leeann and im needing a wee bit advice to cut a long story short i have a wee lop doe who has just had kits she only had 3 but rejected 1 of the kits who seemed to arrive a long time after its siblings i found the kit cold on the bottom of the hutch vet advised to put it aside and allow it to pass only 2 hours later it was still here and again 2 hours after that so i thought well if u r gonna make the effort so iam i kit is now 4 days old living in a wee box on a heat pad and drinking goats milk quite happily i fully do NOT expect the little thing to survive but im tryin my hardest to help him can anyone give me any advice on how much of the milk and how often he should b having a wee drink i know mum only feeds once or twice but ive been kinda tryin to do it every three to 5 hours any advice would b great

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Well good on you for trying.

I don't have much experience but I have heard that when a rabbit only feeds it's young at dawn and dusk it's because the milk is so nutritious that it's enough but that when humans feed with a supplement it needs to be much more often because it doesn't resemble the nutrition received naturally.

I think that it might even have to be more often than 3-5 hours.

I hope that someone with hands on successful experience comes along soon to give you better advice.

Good luck

lolliepop1979 said:

:wave:hi guys newbie my name is leeann and im needing a wee bit advice to cut a long story short i have a wee lop doe who has just had kits she only had 3 but rejected 1 of the kits who seemed to arrive a long time after its siblings i found the kit cold on the bottom of the hutch vet advised to put it aside and allow it to pass only 2 hours later it was still here and again 2 hours after that so i thought well if u r gonna make the effort so iam i kit is now 4 days old living in a wee box on a heat pad and drinking goats milk quite happily i fully do NOT expect the little thing to survive but im tryin my hardest to help him can anyone give me any advice on how much of the milk and how often he should b having a wee drink i know mum only feeds once or twice but ive been kinda tryin to do it every three to 5 hours any advice would b great

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Goats milk isn't ideal, you need to get a kitten replacement milk. You can get them from vets.
I'm sure other, more experienced, people with kit rearing will be along soon to give you advice.
Good luck!

janice i had to take kit away from mum as mum was biting it also it wont allow me to go into thread u posted dont know why

The kit will do much better if you can get at least some feed from mum - it needs the bacteria in the milk for its gut . .

can you do the following (with a friend!):

sit with a sheet or blanket draped over your knees.

Open knees so there is a small 'sag' in blaket.

put mother bun on lap and settle her with legs either side of the slight sag - head away from you tail towards or vice versa - calm mother and stroke . . .

friend now inserts small kit into the 'sag' where it should hopefully find a nipple and feed - you keep hold of mother and make sure she does not kick.

the kit will squiggle around from one nipple to the next feeding.

if mother starts being agitated etc then remove kit (or mother - making sure kit not still attached).


An alternative is to try the same thing but holding mother in the 'cradling' position on her back and placing the kit on her tummy - this is not great for her as she will go into the 'fearful' tonic immobility - but the milk should still flow and you can watch the kit. again watch for kicking etc.

I would try and do this once a day as well as the syringe feeding of the little one with double strength puppy powdered milk every 2-3 hours as it wants.

you can get special tiny syringes for this (small teats fitted onto 1ml syringes ) I will try and find a link.

Here is a link to the teats you need - (3 of them in the pkt)

do not use them with the 'bottle/syringe they show - use instead with a 1ml syringe from the vets - just put the tiny teat over the end of it.

I also bought a kitten beaphar bottle kit just to use for mixing the kitten milk powder etc

can it b any mum i have a rescue doe who has 6 16 day o;d kits she is so chilled and easy to handle that may b poss as kits actual mum has become really quite jumpy and fearful since having her kits

lolliepop1979 said:

can it b any mum i have a rescue doe who has 6 16 day o;d kits she is so chilled and easy to handle that may b poss as kits actual mum has become really quite jumpy and fearful since having her kits

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yes any mum will do - we did this with an orphan wildie of 9 days old and a doe that had had accidental kits 3 weeks before . .

good luck with the little one!

it really is much better if s/he can get some mothers milk -

we did find however that because the action of sucking the teats and sucking nipples is different , once ours had got the habit of teat/syringe eating we had to stop the feeding from mum as he was chewing at the nipple!!!!

but we gt a good weeks mothers milk feed in before that happened.

ok well if the littlemite makes it through the night ill try that tom

lolliepop1979 said:

ok well if the littlemite makes it through the night ill try that tom

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if you can grab a friend at this time of night best to try this eve - if mum feeds her own at the usual time of dawn she will not be so full of milk tomorrow morning -

wee bunny lost his fight this mornin and is on the bunny bridge RIP noddy 5 days old today