Help with baby squidge

Bella, our dwarf lop had 8 gorgeous, unexpected babies on Christmas eve.

One died on Christmas day, the other 7 are now 17 days old. They've opened their eyes and are beginning to explore beyond the nest.

Squidge is about half the size of his brothers sisters. Like them his eyes are open and he also explores beyond the nest, but tends to get knocked around by his bigger sibblings.

His belly isn't sunken, he's not crying, but he is definately much smaller. When I held him today to check him over he suckled my finger, so we tried drops of goats milk from a syringe, but he ignored it.

He doesn't seem at all distressed, but we are concerned about him not being able to compete with his brothers and sisters for his mum's milk.

Have we got a problem, if so what can we do?

i had a runt in my litter , but what i used to do was put just him in with the mum for a little bit just so he could catch up! never did any harm

Sounds to me that this little one may be what we breeders call a peanut, if it is them im sorry but he wont make it , no matter what you do. In my experience rabbits dont have so called runts, if one is born laging behind then its usualy because there is something very wrong with it somewere. To test the theory out to see if its a peanut put it to the mums teat to let it suckle. The doe can be held like a baby upside down in your arms and someone else hold the baby to a teat. What usualy happens is that the baby wants to suckle but gets confused and wont carry on drinking it will move as if trying to find a teat. this lack of concentration if why it wont thrive. Sometimes they will have a little swelling on the top of the head but this may not now be visable because its older. You could try to hand feed with something like kitten milk but if it reacts like ive mentioned then the chances are that it will in the end die. As a breeder ive come across this a few times.Usualy it comes down to one of the parents carrying the [peanut ] gene and should never be used again for breeding. If im certain that it is a peanut i take it to the vet to be pts because the result is that it starves to death if left. As i say anyway test the baby out to see if it can feed properly but i think it may not have a happy out come. I rearly hope that im wrong, it has been known . val

I have also seen rabbit w/ lighter weight during the early stage grow to a normal size later on.

I would give this little guy every chance he is entitle to with whatever milk you can find, 1 cc. at a time of force feeding if necessary and see how it turns out

Aww poor little mite. I hope he's ok.

Hi - just to show you how my little Kami was very small compared with the others and always seemed to be lagging behind - just see how he caught up
Kami is the little one hidden at the back and round the wrong way :roll:





And here he is now - a year old soon (Hes the one on the right!)



Obviously this may not be the same situation as your little one but Kami has turned out okx

thanks all for your replies.

Val - tried your suggestion, Bella (the mother) wasn't keen, but squidge managed to latch on OK. Thanks for the suggestion, feel a bit more positive about his chances now.

Sarsimp -what cute bunnies! Kami's grown into one hansome fella!

Earlier today we noticed all the babies, including Squidge, were starting to nibble on hay and greens, so hopefully he'll be OK.

sarsimp, it seems Kami may be a slow grower at the beginning, but turns out okay in the end. I came across cases of human in similar situation.

Big-si, every new baby rabbit has their own choice of favorite food and treats, see what favorite treats this little one likes, and give it to him, see if that can accelerate his growth.

taylor v 109 said:

Sounds to me that this little one may be what we breeders call a peanut, if it is them im sorry but he wont make it

Click to expand...

Peanuts only live to a couple of days old, they are a result of the double dose of dwarfing gene and pretty much are a Nethie/Mini Lop problem. A Netherland Dwarf or a Mini Lop has one dwarf gene and one normal gene which is what makes them so cute and dumpy. Breeding pure Nethie x Nethie will give 1/4 "big uns" (most pet Nethies are big uns) 1/2 Nethies and 1/4 peanuts. Many breeders mate Nethie x big un - this gives 1/2 big uns and half Nethie.

In the past I have found that runts were quite common, but there wasn't usually much in it and they would tend to catch up. I found that leaving the little one with mum worked well in some cases.

Hope he does okay

catch up is the key word. When I get this rabbit, the breeder sell it to me because she is a bit smaller, compares to the other 4 in the same lot.

But now she is 6 mth. old, this fur ball really catch up and gain weight and got heavy. So, you'll be surprise on the effort of a rabbit if you give him the chance to grow. This little fur ball eats almost one big bowl of hay a day. Plus regular pellet. I love rabbits who eats lots of hay.

IM glad you feel more confident i hope its ok. Its very hard without piccies to tell if your describing a peanut. I know of someone that reared a peanut till it was 12 wks [ now knowing it to be the worst thing she could have done. Its common in a lot of breeds not just minis and netherlands. Ive been breeding for ten years and know breeders of every rabbit going and its a universal problem. the only thing to do is not breed the pair again because they are both carring the gene. val