The Runt

[Mike Hotel]

Issy, our Angora doe, had a litter of kits about two weeks ago. I stayed out of the nest for the most part and checked on the babies every few days.



Today I decided to pull them all out of the box. Here’s what I found.



Obviously, one of the black kits is a runt. It just isn’t keeping up with the others. It looks like it didn’t grow at all (besides fur) after it was born. Today, the other siblings were running around the cage with their eyes open. The runt stumbles around like a drunk, if it moves at all. Eyes are still closed.

I attempted to give it K.M.R. (Kitten Milk Replacer) and brought it inside. I’d like to say that it was too late, but really, there was just something wrong with the kit. It was stiff, didn’t want milk and was half the size of the other bunnies.



I tried over and over tonight to get it to eat, but it would either inhale the milk or spit it out. I checked on it later in the evening and it was dead.

Some people say that they automatically terminate the runt when and if they figure out which rabbit it is. I haven’t had the heart to do that. Some folks that we know here in town have brought two runts back from the brink and they turned out to be very personable bunnies due to being handled extensively. I think the key is to catch it early and decide if it is worth your time.

What would/do you do?

Pax Domini Sit Semper Vobiscum,

Mike Oscar Hotel

The Tiny Homesteaders

[hotzcatz]

We just lost "the runt" yesterday, too, but he was only two days old. We have a "reach out and touch some bunny" philosophy with baby bunnies. They get handled from the moment they are born and mom gets handled a lot, too, so all the bunnies are used to it.


This is the litter at 24 hours old and the little pink runt didn't make it past 36 hours old. It would have grown up to be a chocolate bunny, but he didn't thrive.

Baby bunnies are pretty delicate and more often than not, one of the litter doesn't make it for one reason or another. If there is a significantly smaller one in the litter, I try to foster it with a doe that has a newer litter so the babies will all be the same size, but only one doe had a litter at this time. I've never been able to hand feed a baby and have it thrive so if there's a mom rabbit available, I let her do it. If she can't keep them alive, then I doubt I could.

[Mike Hotel]

That's what I was hoping to do, but my meat mutt doe seems to be holding out for a rainy day or something. Would have been neat to try. This one still looked newborn size, just with a ton of hair.

[Barnhouse]

Me too. I check the nest almost immediately and keep checking the runt.
I found one that was all bone, its skin hanging around it's ankles, but it was still alive and wiggling.
So I made momma sit in my lap and made her feed it alone once a day, the other feeding I would give KMR via syringe. In about a week it was looking much better and continued to improve. Today it's still the smallest but just as healthy as the rest.

[Mike Hotel]

I did try that this afternoon. Didn't work. I'll have to handle them more often, I guess.

[Barnhouse]

I think maybe too much time has gone by with this one.
When my angora doe had her first litter of kits, I was determined to leave her alone because she was very nervous. But I guess the Lord was nagging me to check and I'm glad I did because the nest contained 6 healthy ones and 1 that she had decapitated.
I guess it was born dead because she's been a great mom to the rest, but I sure wouldn't have wanted that dead one in there.

[Mike Hotel]

Will a doe still eat a runt if it dies at two weeks old?

[arnie]

No i'v only seen canibism in new borns with a nervice doe usally a bigger nest box with a coverd top or 3/4 coverd top or a quieter place in the rabbit shed will correct this .I have not had this trouble for years since switching to a better strain of nzw's and cal's .if you are having problems loseing older bunnys i'd suspect some other type of vermin weasle or rat is. Causeing trouble .this can also cause the older rabbits to be overly nervice.

[~Kat]

Usually when I've gotten runts that small they die or the mother eats them not long after they're born. However, not long ago one of my does (a meat mutt) had a litter of nine with one teeny-tiny little runt that just wouldn't give up, despite its siblings being as much as four times bigger than it! There was another runt in the litter only a bit smaller than the rest, still dwarfing this little one. So far, I have weaned all but these two, they're both about the same size now and thriving off mama's milk, they're actually starting to catch up to the others. I'm really surprised, when they were a week old I thought for sure it wasn't going to make it!

[mamma24]

Just had to share our story - my daughter had a litter of mini lops that are show rabbits for 4H. She handles the babies within 48 hours, to get the doe used to a human checking them and to make sure they are all healthy and we know how many kits there are. My daughter found that at about 2 weeks, one of the kits just stopped growing. His litter mates were at least twice his size. He was healthy, just looked like a dwarf. Once they were weaned and wouldn't stay in the next box, he seemed to always be at the end of the line at the feed bowl and he just wasn't gaining weight. So we purchased a small cage and brought him inside, as it got cold up here in WI in April and he was always trying to get warm. We bought him high protein food and he slept INSIDE the house (our rabbits are all outside/in the garage). My daughter handled him and he often was in bed with her! I called the cage the NICU and I nicknamed him Squirt, as he was so small - he didn't look like much of a mini lop! He ended up a little smaller than his litter mates, but because he was handled so much he is the sweetest little rabbit. Because he has less than 10% of his second fur coloring (he is a broken pattern) he cannot be shown, but we love him so much and are planning on using him as a therapy bunny! Sometimes those runts pull thru. We have lost runts in the past and it is always sad - sorry about your loss.