11 day hand raised baby

[Joeylinton9]

I have an 11 day old baby that was hand raised from 1-2 days old. For milk ive been using nurseall with equal amount water, some heavy cream, and i have a colostrum supplement i used. I'm a zoo keeper and have raised tons of different animals but i dont have too much experience raising rabbit kits. I know survival odds are low considering how young it was but I'm hoping it keeps doing as good as it has been. Just a few questions (some are for younger kits, assuming im going to have more babies sometime soon). How often and how long do you use colostrum? Is acidophilus a good idea? What feeding schedule/ amounts do you use? I did three times a day 2.5 ml for the first week (he was underweight). Right now he is 11 days old and getting 12-15 ml a day. When the eyes open i will introduce solid foods and water. I do plan on getting poop from a healthy adult for the baby. Any other information will be useful. I do not take babies from the mothers i know they have the best chances with their mothers. The issue is we have at least 15 adults at a time in one pen, the mothers are never separated. Out of about 12-14 litters this winter none have survived. All have been eaten. The one i have now was the last one from his litter the rest were eaten. I only take them in those situations. Any advice would be appreciated i wanna give these babies the best chances

 

[Preitler]

You're doing a great job getting this one so far. I think colcstrum is most important for the first few feedings, then not so much.

About raising kits, there is a lot of hands on information there, it might need some search work though (use "formula" and [Search titles only], or play with the advanced search, unfortunatly stickies got lost with the last software update):
https://rabbittalk.com/forums/kindling-care-of-does-kits.47/
Apart from hay I offer damp oatmeal to kits, I also think that it would be good to collect some fresh poop from the does and put it in the nestbox, a lot of helpful bacteria in there.

So many litters, and none survived? Either there is something fundamantly wrong with the setup, or nutrition. Definitly not anywhere in the range of "can happen randomly". How crowded is their place? There definitly is something really off that needs to be fixed. Either by not allowing to have litters, or by making things work.

My first assumption would be that you have a rat problem there. Whole litters disappearing with just specks of blood or body parts left - I've seen that. Rats. Whenever I notice rats are around I go to war.

 

[Joeylinton9]

You're doing a great job getting this one so far. I think colcstrum is most important for the first few feedings, then not so much.

About raising kits, there is a lot of hands on information there, it might need some search work though (use "formula" and [Search titles only], or play with the advanced search, unfortunatly stickies got lost with the last software update):
https://rabbittalk.com/forums/kindling-care-of-does-kits.47/
Apart from hay I offer damp oatmeal to kits, I also think that it would be good to collect some fresh poop from the does and put it in the nestbox, a lot of helpful bacteria in there.

So many litters, and none survived? Either there is something fundamantly wrong with the setup, or nutrition. Definitly not anywhere in the range of "can happen randomly". How crowded is their place? There definitly is something really off that needs to be fixed. Either by not allowing to have litters, or by making things work.

My first assumption would be that you have a rat problem there. Whole litters disappearing with just specks of blood or body parts left - I've seen that. Rats. Whenever I notice rats are around I go to war.

They arents my rabbits, just the place i work for. There are about 15 adult rabbits in a pen together, no separation or places for a mother to nest. Most of the time the other adults eat the babies or the mother eats them. A few have died just because the mother stopped feeding them or they got cold (about 55f in the buildin). In my opinion, theres too many adults for a mother to comfortably raise kits.

 

[Deludedbyreality]

They arents my rabbits, just the place i work for. There are about 15 adult rabbits in a pen together, no separation or places for a mother to nest. Most of the time the other adults eat the babies or the mother eats them. A few have died just because the mother stopped feeding them or they got cold (about 55f in the buildin). In my opinion, theres too many adults for a mother to comfortably raise kits.

That's definitely a factor. Housing and stress. There's way too many adults to safely raise kits if they're living in what sounds like a colony. They can eat their young purely based off of instinct and for survival as young equates to increased vulnerability to predators. There are some fairly interesting from an societal observational point yet brutal videos of colony rabbits showing aggression towards kits that survive the nesting stage for perusal on youtube. Recommendations would be to pull pregnant does and separate them during the birth to weaning stage with their young. This would require reintroduction to the colony however as during that length of time you have potential for bonds to weaken and aggression to surface towards the extricated kits and Does upon reintroduction. However I am rather curious as to how many rabbits your job is wanting? 12-15 should be plenty for an exhibit. Rabbits proliferate at such a rapid rate. As for the feeding of a kit...colostrum should be fine to stop now. Hand feeding will continue until 8-12 weeks which is proper weaning age for domesticated Rabbits; 4-6 wks for cottontails. Hay introduction via the nesting area will suffice with regular changes to prevent any potential bacterial infections.