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hand rearing baby bunnies?/baby didn't make it

W

willowflower

Warren Scout
it's not really for me but a friend of mine has a foster bun who has just given birth and she's feeding all of them except one she just won't entertain it and keeps pushing it away. she phoned the vet and was advised that there might be a health reason why mum wont take care of it but obviously my friend wants to do all she can but i have zero experience with baby bunnies so was just wondering what she should do is there a technique? she's feeding him on a milk substitute she got from vet on the end of a teaspoon is that ok? how often should she feed the baby?
any advice would be great
 
hello i m currently hand rearing a couple of bunnies, find all my posts that are under my name suzynick and you should find all the info you need!
 
I would go with what your vet says. Mother nature really does know best and the does instinct is obviously telling her that something is wrong with this baby - particulary if shes feeding the others and is just turfing one out. Personally I would leave her to it.

Hand rearing from this age is rarely successful but good luck if you wish to try.
 
If you have a mummy bun handy the best thing is to hold the mum bun up (distract her if necessary with yummy food) and hold the baby so it can suckle. The mums milk is loads better than any of the substitutes so that's the babies best chance.

Tam
 
my friend is going to give it a go she knows it's unlikely it'll survive but it was making efforts to feed and it looks quite healthy if a little smaller than the others she didn't want to stand by and do nothing (the vet did advise this) but she has decided to give baby a fighting chance.
 
i hand reared a baby successfully when Cystal was pushing him away of course he ended up with many health problems and lived only to the age of 1 :cry: but i had experience with bottle feeding etc as i helped my mum do this alot when she was breeding cats. im not sure what other people use for hand rearing but i had a proper hand rearing bottle for baby animals. i read that it was best to feed a baby bunnie on its back as this is the normal feeding position for them.
 
thanks for all the advice but unfortunately baby bun has passed over to the bridge. my friend is distraught as it was only 1 day old and althogugh she was told not to hope to much she became attatched but it just wasn't enough.
baby bun passed away in last half hour
it's so sad
 
Crystal butterfly said:
i hand reared a baby successfully when Cystal was pushing him away of course he ended up with many health problems and lived only to the age of 1 :cry: but i had experience with bottle feeding etc as i helped my mum do this alot when she was breeding cats. im not sure what other people use for hand rearing but i had a proper hand rearing bottle for baby animals. i read that it was best to feed a baby bunnie on its back as this is the normal feeding position for them.
Click to expand...

This could be why the mother was pushing him out of the nest, mother nature is a wonderful thing and instinctively knows when something is wrong.
 
willowflower said:
thanks for all the advice but unfortunately baby bun has passed over to the bridge. my friend is distraught as it was only 1 day old and althogugh she was told not to hope to much she became attatched but it just wasn't enough.
baby bun passed away in last half hour
it's so sad
Click to expand...

Your friend shouldn't feel bad, baby rabbits are so fragile and I suspect baby had something wrong with anyway so its possibly for the best. But at least your friend tried :) not many would have done.
 
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