Help Please!!!

[that's*satyrical]

I am pretty sure my rabbit is not feeding her 9 new kits. They were acting desperate this morning & their tummies don't look full. I am thinking of holding her & trying to get them to nurse but with 9 that could prove difficult. Is there any way to entice her to start taking care of them? I don't want them to die

 

[Nikki]

If you're sure, you could bottle feed them. That I would not recomend unless nothing else works, because usually they die (for me). When we had 5 kits and their mother died, luckily we had another doe who had kitsso we put the 5 on the other doe's belly to feed. About 2 at a time, then we fostered them out. To bottle feed them, I used Kitten milk replacer. You could probably find more about bottle feeding kits on the internet. Goodluck.

 

[terri9630]

I would try holding the doe over them first. That is the natural position for both. If that doesn't work then I would try holding the doe on her back. If you have to try to feed them I've used room temp canned goats milk and q-tips. Just be very careful to not get any milk on the kits nose or they will aspirate it. How long has it been since they have had fat bellies.

Is this her first litter?

 

[that's*satyrical]

It's her 2nd litter. Her 1st litter she did great! This time she did not pull fur & the kits were born on the wire. We tried holding her on her back & letting them nurse but it didn't seem like they were getting anything even though they were acting hungry they wouldn't stay on the nipple for more than a few seconds then root around again looking for more. I tried bottle feeding them some fresh goats milk. Well, technically syringe feeding them with a tiny nipple from a mothering kit. I guess we will see what happens. Hopefully they stimulated some more milk production by suckling?? I guess I will keep doing this unless they start to look full when I check on them. Hopefully it won't take too long. Syringe feeding 9 of them twice a day is not my idea of fun

 

[ruthless]

sounds like she does not have any or enough milk. Is the doe eating well? if not, try giving her some oats on top of her pellets. Plain old fashioned oats like you would cook for oatmeal. did wonders for one of mine that would not eat.

 

[that's*satyrical]

Kits died

 

[terri9630]

So sorry. The doe could be having heat stress issues which would cause her to not have milk. That is a common problem here so we only breed late fall through early spring.

 

[that's*satyrical]

So sorry. The doe could be having heat stress issues which would cause her to not have milk. That is a common problem here so we only breed late fall through early spring.

Yeah that seems like the case. With this bad heatwave it's just bad timing for a litter of kits to be born.