New babies!

[bobwhitelover]

We have 10-11 new baby bunnies our mini lop doe just gave birth to a HUGE litter. I will post pics ASAP!! Sadly 2 arn't doing well they can barley lift their heads so i think they will pass on by tonight
Here are pics!

 

[RabbitMage]

Rabbits are notoriously hard to bottle feed. You're better off letting mom handle them.

 

[debilorrah]

Quote:
I am new to rabbits and mine are a different breed. I know that the french angoras have very fatty and protein rich milk and the kits only need to feed once a day.

 

[Akane]

Rabbit milk is very hard to replicate, there currently is no really good substitute, and rabbits are rather difficult to feed. Rabbit milk also changes as the kits age to prepare the stomach for solid food and we can't copy that yet. That makes it best for a kit to get all it's milk from a rabbit. If you have a big litter with some not doing as well as others you can try flipping the doe over and setting the lagging kits on her for a feed or removing the biggest kits for a day (make sure they stay warm enough) until after the doe has fed the others. Most of the time the kits can skip a feeding here or there and not suffer so it lets them all get enough even if the doe doesn't have enough nipples for every kit to feed every time.

However if it comes down to the kit dying if it's not supplemented I prefer to use goat kid formula mixed to double the concentration the directions on the package say. I actually compared the numbers from that concentration of kid formula to the values released on cottontail milk when I was comparing recipes for feeding rescued cottontails and it was really close. I doubt domestics are too much different. It's definitely closer than using KMR. You will have to use a syringe (1cc or smaller) or dropper unless you order a nipple online because none of the ones sold in stores are small enough especially for mini or dwarf breeds. There are a few sites online that sell some for raising baby squirrels which work for rabbits. Make sure the kits all get their first drink from the doe because they need to get colostrum which contains antibodies or they will die from illness. Baby animals can only absorb colostrum for so long after they are born so you can't start out bottle feeding unless you get a colostrum replacer and the replacement formulas are nowhere near as good. For horses people will actually spend $1000's on plasma if they don't get a drink of colostrum from the mare soon enough. For horses though we only have a few hours before they can no longer absorb colostrum where rabbits sometimes don't feed their young for up to 48hrs after they are born.

 

[bobwhitelover]

She had 11 however 1 of them died in birth): If they are near death i will bottle feed though i will pst pics when i get them off my camara!