Baby Bunnies

[Red Rooster Pro]

Had 6 babies born 11 days ago. Holland lop and lion head mix. Can't wait to see what they will look like. The momma is a first timer..as are we.... Anyone know if the runt will die or if they usually die from being so much smaller? Can I buy rabbit's milk and feed it to him/her? I heard you could buy kitten supplement milk for them....not sure. Any ideas....it is so sweet but much smaller than the others and it seems sluggish today, not as a big of a stomach as the other bun-buns.

Thanks in advance...!

 

[Bunnylady]

Had 6 babies born 11 days ago. Holland lop and lion head mix. Can't wait to see what they will look like. The momma is a first timer..as are we.... Anyone know if the runt will die or if they usually die from being so much smaller? Can I buy rabbit's milk and feed it to him/her? I heard you could buy kitten supplement milk for them....not sure. Any ideas....it is so sweet but much smaller than the others and it seems sluggish today, not as a big of a stomach as the other bun-buns.

Thanks in advance...!

Welcome to BYC!

At 11 days old, your kits should be trying out the feed and hay. Pretty quickly, the mother's milk will become a minor part of their diet, and the vast majority of the calories they consume will come from the feed. I sometimes add plain dry rolled oats to the regular rabbit pellets; they are a good "baby food" for buns just starting on solids.

Nobody makes a specific rabbit milk replacer; as you said, the kitten replacer is as close as you can get.

I know, there's the ol' "underdog bias" that makes you want to help the runt, but my experience has been that it is seldom worthwhile. Perfectly healthy kits can be somewhat smaller than their siblings at birth, but their growth rate pretty much keeps pace with the rest of the litter. A runt starts out smaller, and keeps getting further and further behind, basically because there is something wrong with it. If a "runt" survives to the age that I normally start selling kits, I may give it away, but only to someone who understands that it has a serious problem and most likely won't live for long.