Dehydrated Rabbit

Amelie the Bee Keeper

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This is my rabbit's first litter. There are ten kits. I guess this one kit got pushed to the side for a feeding or two and now is super dehydrated. She is very skinny and all signs point majorly to dehydration. If you pinch any of her skin it stays up and all skin is drooping. I fear she is not going to make it. I've seen something about giving a dehydrated rabbit sugar water, but I'm not sure if that's true and if it is, then I think the baby is too young... She is 6 days old. It's to the point that I don't think the mother rabbit can do anything for it.

This is from BackYardChickens': https://www.backyardchickens.com/members/caboodleschicks.460592/
 

promiseacres

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You can try sugar water... but probably to far gone at this point. Not uncommon to lose kits.
 

Pastor Dave

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I probably saw this too late by now, but I have gotten my wife to help while I hold the doe and Jill holds the kit to the teats to try to get it to latch on. If it has the strength and does nurse, one good time of it might be enough to let it fend for itself. You may need to do this process a couple times a day for as long as it takes until it gets stronger. I have had it work a couple times and have tried probably 4x, so maybe a 50-50 success rate.
 
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