Hand rearing feeding 2 week old orphaned kits. Baby rabbits mother died.
Like 2 Dislike 0 Published on 9 Jun 2018
Hi. This is a video of some kits we’ve fostered from another breeder. Tragically, their mother passed away when they were two weeks. The breeder had no lactating doe and was going on holiday the next day unfortunately, so didn’t have time to hand feed.
We’ve fostered these mini rex babies. They are with my mini rex doe, stormy. All is going well so far but I am aware that little kits can be very fragile and Iv never heard of happy endings from my breeder friends when a mother passes away early.
Stormys litter is already quite large. She has 7 babies already. I did originally split the babies between stormy and my mini lop who also has seven kits. However, I have had to add lots of things to my mini lops food as she has been losing weight for some reason (but is healthy and has a huge appetite still, so I’m coming to the conclusion that she needs more fats and proteins in her diet). Because of this I decided I didn’t want any of the mini lop kits to suffer if mini lop mom isn’t producing much milk. So, I am hand feeding the babies and hoping they are managing to get a bit of milk from stormy. Stormys babies are all out of the nest and eating lots! They are fabulous eaters and nice and chunky so I have no worries with them at all.
However, I am worried about the new fostered orphans as they are looking skinny. I can see their spine. I am doing all I can. I am hand feeding with kitten milk (he only brand we have locally as it was very short notice of course), giving lots of alfalfa (much higher in protein than other hay), an excellent quality pellet food (Burgess I think) for young rabbits, adding sunflower hearts into the feed too for extra fat, as always abundant amounts of hay, grass and weeds.
I will keep you updated. To see more photos of babies please see my website bosworthbunnies.weebly.com under the “for sale” header they have their own page.