Help! mother not feeding

[Pawsome_Pets]

My rabbit gave birth to 6 babies on wednesday night, she hasnt been feeding them so I have been trying to hand feed them. its really difficult to do with a syringe and im probably doing more harm than good. Is there anybody who knows how I can get my rabbit to feed them? I know she has some milk because 3 of them managed to get a feed the other night. Any suggestions welcome!

Also thought of using a teat/nipple but even the kitten sized ones are too big for their tiny mouths and i know i need to invest in a probiotic. Id much rather her milk!

 

[Watermelons]

KMR milk supplement not the hartz stuff, though i assume vet solutions pro biolac would work as well, not sure what you can get your hands on in NZ, and an eyedropper. Never hand fed rabbits, but I love the VS kitten pro biolac and have used it for many other species.

 

[TinysMom]

Feeding Orphaned rabbits or those who need supplemental milk

This is pinned in our rabbitry section - it gives how much to give per feeding, etc.

The best thing for the babies is mama's milk though....if you can flip her on her back and put the babies on her nipples for a bit or put them in a basket and put treats in it for her and then put her on top of the babies...

 

[Pawsome_Pets]

Thanks, we just got 1/2 full bellies by 'force feeding' them with her on her back. thanks for the advise!! fingers crossed from now on!

 

[majorv]

If you run into problems doing it that way you can try laying a towel across your lap/stomach, putting the babies on it and then putting the mom on you (over them). We just recently had to force feed one this way. We held the mom's head/ear base so she didn't jerk and accidentally step on the baby. Since we had her at a slight angle there was room for thebabyto move around under her, and we could see how the baby was doing, too.

 

[Jaded]

If you havent already - you can flip the mum on her back and put the babies on her tummy to feed.

 

[Nancy McClelland]

Everybody has already put forth the suggestions I was going to use. Since they only get fed 2 times a day under normal circumstances I was gonna suggest that you dominate the mother and let them feed from her.

 

[Anaira]

*waves* Just wanna say Hi; I'm DR from Ratclub.

 

[Pawsome_Pets]

Hehe Hi DR

I am happy to report they all got feed by mum this last night! yay!
I came home and she was just sitting there, I put one baby under her and she let it feed and cleaned it etc so I added another and another until all 6 were feeding and bathing! im so happy!

im just praying this isn't a one-off thing and that she keeps it going!

 

[mistyjr]

What I did was took the nesting box out and made the mother feed them, I put also pellets in the box with her so she can eat too. I just put her in the box and wouldnt let her jump out. She had to feed the babies or they would have starved!