If you can get kittens replacement milk (or puppy's), - available at Vet's offices, TSC and other animal care places- that would be the best way to wean them onto solid feed. They may be able to eat on their own, they are pretty close to weaning age. But, for the cost of the milk and a bottle, its a good insurance to have handy. If you can get the powder, you can mix it as needed. Otherwise the liquid form will get you by. Bottle feeding rabbits isn't easy, takes practice and is very time consuming. I've found that instead of putting the nipple in the bunnies mouth, it works better to put a drop in the cleft under their nose and as they suck the liquid in, replace the drop. Get them to drink as much as you can, and put them in a different box as they are done. When all have eaten, wait 10 minutes and repeat the process putting them back in the nest. This way, every one gets to drink twice. I use a fine point marker and put numbers in their ears so you can keep track of who is eating well and who needs more nutrition. Good luck.

 

I have never had to feed baby bunnies myself before but have been told fresh goats milk is one of the best milk replacers around for all different types of animals. Just what I've heard.

Tracy
Southwestern, NY

 

I just had a mom die too. My babies are a little older and they've been eating and drinking already so I don't imagine weaning will be a problem, but I'm wondering what happened to the mom.

 

When this happened with us we offered the kits a dish of warm milk replacer twice a day. They had no problem drinking it right down themselves and all survived.

 

Patt- Hello, we had a doe last week have heat stroke, she tried to take care of them but wasn't producing enough milk and the babies were getting dehydrated. We started them onto the goats milk because we were told that it wouldn't cause them to get diarreah(however it's spelled). We have 5 little ones that are doing great on the goats milk, and if you have some available or know someone with them its said to be good for them. I mix in a little bit of acidophilus in the milk to give them good bacteria in the bowels. This is just my expierience with the goats milk because I have never used the KMR. Good Luck with the babies. Oh yeah it is a little dificult to bottle raise but it has and will get easier for you as you learn their little behaviors while feeding them. We have some that are raring to go when it is feeding time and others seem to forget from the first feeding but it has been really joyfull. Hope this helps!!

Mellissa

 

Thanks to everyone for their responses. It was a holiday weekend so there were no Vets open. So we kept an eye on them and saw they were eating and drinking fine so we put some vitamin/electrolyte powder in their water and kept plenty of hay and greens out for them. We only lost one out of 8 so that's good. They're all fat and healthy now.

 

Okay, the two folks who had the mother babies die:

What signs did she have? Did she have any diahreeah? Sweaty looking? Blood? Back broken? Rabbits shouldn't be dying like that, I have never lost a rabbit suddenly like that, even in the heat and humidity of 100+ degrees in Illinois. ANYTHING you noticed, can you tell me, and I will try to help you guys out if I can?

 

She looked thin and it appeared that she had some diarrhea just before she died. No blood, no sweat, no broken back. It was a warm day, but not over 80 and I'd given her a two liter bottle of frozen water.

Okay, the two folks who had the mother babies die:

What signs did she have? Did she have any diahreeah? Sweaty looking? Blood? Back broken? Rabbits shouldn't be dying like that, I have never lost a rabbit suddenly like that, even in the heat and humidity of 100+ degrees in Illinois. ANYTHING you noticed, can you tell me, and I will try to help you guys out if I can?

 

If she had diahreeah, it is one of two things: Something she ate, especially lettuce could possibly do this. The reason why lettuce more than other greens is because it does not have alot of substance, but fills them up quickly on water.

More likely she had something else, a disease, especially if she was already thin. It could have been coccidiosis (sp?), or clostridium (I had this once with my bunnies).

Coccidiosis is easy to treat, thankfully, but the clostridium isn't, it's untreatable. The clostridium isn't as common, although it is a relatively unknown disease (the only reason we found out we had it from MULTIPLE rabbits we had gotten from a slew of rabbit breeders is because we sent it to a lab).

It could also simply be from greens, which I am not sure if you give or not, but are one of the dangers of them. Usually there aren't problems, but it can be, and when we sold rabbits, when our herd was a closed herd and clean, we sold pets to petshops. We didn't have snuffles, didn't have ANY diahreeah in ours. We would send them to the petshops, and they would give them greens and carrots, and they would die. So I don't have alot of experience, but I know generally speaking it isn't worth the risk. The pelleted food has a perfect vitamin and food content, and to supplement with grass or timothy hay just increases the fiber, which is fine, but anything other than that can be a problem. That being said, we did give them carrot greens here and there, but it was a tiny amount, like a couple of "strands". So anything in temperence should be okay, but stay away from the "watery" greens, those cause the most problems. Parsley and carrot greens are pretty good, as are carrots, but all in small amounts they can eat within a couple of minutes.

Just going off the top of my head! Without seeing bunny it is hard to say exactly what happened, jut putting out all the possibilities here! I hope that helps!

Natalie