runt bunny

[ChikenChik]

So I have this 2 week old runty baby bunny. So tiny compared to the others..ribs are showing...I revived it once after being pulled out of the nest one cooler night. Mommmy is doing great feeding the other 8. This one is just not being fed enough. It is not a peanut I am pretty certain because mom is HUGE like probably Flemish giant mix and dad is a really big New Zealand so I am pretty sure that isn't possible right? Anyway I have another rabbit with only 3 babies that are a couple of days younger. She had a rough litter and most of the babies didn't survive. She is feeding fine though and I was wondering if I could put the runty one in with her or is it too late?

 

[promiseacres]

Wouldn't hurt to try.

 

[Sundragons]

Try the vanilla trick. Dab some vanilla on new mom's nose and all the kits you want to put with her. Hopefully there will be less chance of rejection that way, but at 2 weeks, gonna be hit and miss.

 

[Jennifer Hinkle]

Sometimes a Momma Rabbit will cast out a runt if she thinks something is wrong with it. I had a doe that done this. She took care of the others but not the littlest one. Survival of the fittest I guess.

 

[Tale of Tails Rabbitry]

Sometimes a Momma Rabbit will cast out a runt if she thinks something is wrong with it. I had a doe that done this. She took care of the others but not the littlest one. Survival of the fittest I guess.

Never seen that in all the years I have have rabbits. What I have seen is the weakest and smallest not get to nurse because of the stronger and larger kits pushing it away. It just gets so weak that it cannot get to the mother.

 

[Tale of Tails Rabbitry]

Sorry, but what you have sounds like a fader, which is a general term for any number of conditions that prevent the kit from thriving, such as a underdeveloped digestive system. I had one and you can keep them alive for awhile, but I would cull if I had one now. They do not/cannot make it, especially when the mother's milk begins to dry up and the siblings are twice to thrice its size.

 

[oldhenlikesdogs]

It's a bit late, but what I did for my failing runt was to put it in a depression in some bedding, than I held mom by the scruff over the kit so it could nurse all by itself. Mom fought me a bit, but eventually she let it nurse. I did this for 2 days. The kit got enough from those two feedings to catch up and than thrive. My doe had 9 kits too. I finally stepped in and tried this at about the week old mark.

 

[Jennifer Hinkle]

I have had a lot of issues with rabbits in the past. I have had does that killed her babies and ate them. I have had does that I know were bred not have babies ever. Needless to say I didn't keep those does. Something was really wrong with them. I now have good normal does and buck. So hopefully lots of bunnies.

 

[Sundragons]

@ChikenChik , what was the outcome with this runt? did it make it?

 

[Ridgetop]

Try to foster it. I have used the vanilla trick, but I can take some raisins (poop) from the doe you want to foster the kit and rub it on the bunny. Then I take the nest box out of the doe's cage. She won't nurse during the day anyway. Take it into the house with the runt from the other litter. Take a tattoo needle and tattoo a tiny dot in one ear so you can tell that it is the foster. Then put it in the box with the other kits. In the evening, take the nest box and replace it in the doe's cage. All the kits will now smell the same and she will usually keep the foster.

I have had weakling kits too. Some grow and some don't. If the 9th kit keeps getting pushed off the teat by aggressive larger siblings, and if the mom doesn't have a lot of milk left over for the runt, it will not make it. If the kit gets too weak to survive, I put it down like I do peanuts.