mom died and left 3 babies please help me

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KimboUNCW1

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i'm posting this all over. i just joined b/c im desperate to save this baby bunny. please help!

hey yall my name's kimberly and one of my rabbits just had babies.:shock:we had no idea she was pregnant. we have 5 rabbits. we have a huge pin outside for them and put plastic all around it with a dog igloo and tons of hay in it. i noticed the mama was always in the dog house and was cut up due to her hair being ripped off.... i found her this afternoon dead in the house with three babies next to her still alive. 6 of the babies were brand new and died and im so heartbroken. i brought all of the rabbits inside and they're in the bathroom nice n warm. two of the babies have a nice coat and their eyes opened but the 3rd is a brand new baby. did she have two litters?? i have the tinygirl or boyunder my shirt in my hand so she's warm but with plenty of air. im afraid the other rabbits might hurt her. she also has a tiny cut on her back. i need yalls help!!:(i dont know a thing about bunnies and i need all the help i can get. i dont want to loose anymore babies!
 
Hi,

I deleted your duplicate post in the Infirmary section, you'll probably get more answers here.

So, just to clarify: The mother is dead. There are 2 older babies and one new-born baby.

If the mother had indeed passed, she most likely had a stuck baby or suffered from calcium withdrawal.

Check all of your other rabbits to make sure none of them are mothers as well. You'll need to make sure the males and femals are seperated.

Rabbits have no heat cycle, and are fertile all the time.They drop their eggs once they have been mated, and are fertile immediatly after giving birth.

They are pregnant for 4 weeks. So the older babies are most likely 4 weeks old and have a good chance of being okay with out mom.

The new born one has much slimmer chances. You canattempt to hand feed with KMR, but the best option is to find another feeding mother. That's why it's importand to check all your bunnies to see if any of them have milk.

I don't have time right now to give you more information, but please read up on new born rabbits in our Bunny 101 section.

http://rabbitsonline.net/view_topic.php?id=12047&forum_id=17
http://rabbitsonline.net/view_topic.php?id=12422&forum_id=10

Hopefully another member can step up and help you to hand feed.

--Dawn
 
Thanks Dawn, I was looking for the official Resource Center entry and couldn't find it, so I posted some member threads.

Kimberly, the link from Aurora/Dawn is a good one, please read through it.

Did the older babies have access to hay? Do they still have access to hay? What foodwas in the house with them?



sas :pray:
 
how do you tell who's the boy or girl!! i tried to see if maybe others were preggers by feeling for "ninnies" but could'nt find any. ill read those links thanks you guys!
 
well now they're all in a huge box with hay... i always fed them rabbit pellets frm the feed store. i fed the babies with a syringe *sp* a little bit but im still oldin the smallest one. i dont want her to get hurt
 
Did they have hay before? They should be fine, you won't have to syringe feed them, its way better if you don't. (What exactly did you syringe feed?) As long as they wereused to eating hay and pellets with their mom, they should be okay. If they were only getting her milk, though, it could be a problem, because sudden diet changes are really bad for them. They must changegradually.

I'm sure you'll read this in the links, but don't feed the little one cow's milk.

sas
 
I'll leave this for Aurora and the breeders, now, they're more experienced.

Really hopethey all make it and there aren't any more coming from your other bunnies.



sas :pray:
 
well i dont think they had n e thing but her milk. i didnt know the eat hay?! lol im still trying to figure out how to sex them by readin the link. i wis yall were close enough to stop by and help lol. ill take pics when i get the chance. my vet doesnt do rabbits but i will find one that does.
 
First of all, if we could find a breeder in your area who was willing to foster them - would you be willing to let the breeder take them? If so....we need an idea of where you live (You can send it via. private message if you prefer that route - you can send messagse at the top right of the page where it says "no new messages".Click on that and it brings you to a form.

You could get some kitten replacement formula from a grocery store o rWalmart and syringe feed some of that. It comes in a powder form.

Pipp is right - check your other rabbits to see if there are any that are mamas...

Also - can you tell us someting about the baby - does its tummy area look like it ate (it should almost look like a ping pong ball) - or does it look shrunken in and wrinkly? I'm hoping maybe the mama nursed it before she died..

Peg
 
Do you have any ways to take pictures and share them with us? One of the mods can help you get them posted if you need help...

I'm rereading your post and thinking through this. I'm guessing you're going to have another mama if you have two babies that have their eyes opened and have fur. The reason? Babies open their eyes around day10.. that means that litter is probably 10+ days old.

I would check the sex of your older rabbits and see who is a female. If she's a mama - especially if she is the mama of the older babies,you'll be able to feel her nipples and she may have fur missing from her belly or legs where she pulled fur to make a nest.

You can put the babies together to nurse. Ideally, you'd want to put the newborn with a litter that was less than 3 days older than it for the right nutrients in the milk, but since right now we just want to keep the baby alive - I'd try to get it to drink with the older ones.

You can do this by taking a shoe box or some sort of box and putting the babies in it and then having mama on top of them. I like to give mama a treat and pet her to keep her calm. It will only take her about5 minutes or so to nurse them and you can tell if they've eaten 'cause their bellies will fill up and they'll look as if they have a ping pong ball inside.

If she doesn't nurse them then - keep trying every two hours or so_Obviously, one of your rabbits has been nursing babies if they're ten days old. My only concern is that the doe may be trying to wean them (if she's still alive and not the one that died) because she probably got pregnant again immediately after giving birth.

I'd like to share more with you LATER about how to avoid this again -but please - don't feel bad - let's just try to save the babies you have now and then talk about what to do in the future later..

Peg
 
So you think there's two mothers and not just that the one mother had two litters and the ones with their eyes open are four weeks old? I guess that makes sense.Really would be great if there's another nursing mother.

Thanks for stepping in, Peg.

sas
 
Pipp,

Have you seen a four week old bunny? Mine are curious as all get-out and dying to get out of the cage. At four weeks ok, it would be hard not to notice them....depending upon where one lives and how cold it is.

Of course - if its been really really cold where the poster lives -perhaps the babies did stay in the house and hide. I don't know.

But if they're a month old and she's brought them into the house -they're going to be going crazy wanting to explore things. If they're10 days - 2 weeks old...then they're gonna be sleeping most of the time and wanting mama sometimes.

There is a big difference in activity level between a 2 week old and a 4 week old.

My concern is kind of that if they are 10 days - 2 weeks apart in age(from the young litter) - and the mama (if there is a 2nd mama) is pregnant again - she will only have milk for a short time longer.Probably not long enough to nurse this one...so you're looking at fostering it or trying to go with formula or something.

If we could find out the baby's current condition (ie...if it has the ping pong belly) then we know if we have 24 hours to find a foster - or if we need to start getting formula into it tonight.

Hope I'm making some sense...there's so much to think through about this.

Peg
 
i've purchased some krf and given some to the baby. i kinda don't want to give them up because i've grow so attatched you know? i'll do whatever yall think i should but if yall don't think its a good idea then i'll think about fostering. ill take pics in a min
 
The ones with their eyes open should not be a problem for you. I'll walk you through feeding them - once we see them(that will help). If they're only 10 days or so - then I'd start them on oatmeal and a bit of hay. If they're a month old (like mama had an arlier litter) then they can have rabbit food.

It's the newborn I'm concerned about. I think pictures will help us be able to help you.

It would also help if you can tell us about the rabbits you have...size/age, etc.

Peg
 
If you can - get a shot with this one next to the others too.

I'm not thinking this is a newborn....because it has the fur on it. A newborn tort (which is what I'm thinking it is for color) would be all pink with some dark markings along the ear - but not fur in yet. The fur takes 2-3 days to come in.

I'm going to keep checking in every few minutes to see what you post.

Peg
 
Ok. I have a couple more questions.

Can you tell me about the mama that died? What color was she? Was she a lionhead by any chance?

Secondly - the youngest kit - does it have bald spots on top of its head and on its flanks? I know that may sound like a crazy question.

I'm really thinking you have two different mamas. I'm about to show the photos to my husband and get his opinion. The older ones just don't seem like month old babies (from an earlier litter from same mama).

Peg
 
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