Mother rabbit killed a baby, how do I keep the rest alive?

[Glazcia]

I adopted a female rabbit Monday. She had 11 babies yesterday, I didn't know she was pregnant.

I have her and the babies in a 5 X 5 cage outside with plenty of food, water and hay. The neighbors around us have dogs that bark it might be stressing her enough to harm the babies. I don't know anything about this I've never had a mother rabbit before.

Anyway, 2 babies died this morning. When I came home she had killed another 2. One could have died naturally it didn't have any damage but the other was mutilated.

I don't want more babies to die, there are still 7 left only two days old. What do I do?

 

[squidpop]

You didn't mention if she has a nest box or made a nest? Did she pull fur?

I don't know what sort of property you live on but if its a farm sometimes when people find mutilated babies it can be a rat, or cat reaching through the bars so just be aware of that, and if you think there is a rat you will have to deal with that issue. Mothers also sometimes eat babies because they died in the nest and its there way of keeping things clean. But there is also a chance she has gotten too stressed because of dogs or other predators and is confused and has killed her babies.

In the wild, rabbits give birth and leave the nest to and hide somewhere so that predators won't smell them. I would give her a safe secure box or something to hide in that sits away from her nest, or even cover one end of the hutch, whatever you think will make her feel more secure, if she feels secure she probably will stop eating kits. Her milk may not come in for 24 hours after giving birth. So, its normal for a doe to not feed her kits until 24 hours after giving birth. After their milk comes in does feel very uncomfortable and get a greater instinct to go back to the nest and feed. Rabbits don't sit with the babies or snuggle with them. They feed the babies for 2 to 4 minutes a day and then they run off and hide away from the nest, so as not to attract predators. So if she doesn't sit near her babies its normal, she is not abandoning them. So try to give her a secure place to hide. Hopefully she will calm down and feed her kits like normal.

Also, make sure they babies have a secure nest box with sides on it so they can't crawl out and freeze. Nest box Sides around 7 inches with hay and fur.

Then wait 14 hours or so and check and see if she has fed them. Here's how to check if they have been fed. http://rabbittalk.com/fed-vs-unfed-kit-pictures-t3052.html

After you've given her a chance to calm down and feed on her own,
if she still isn't feeding the babies or you feel you can't leave her with the babies because she is truly attacking them, then you could take the whole nest box with babies into your house, and try to feed them twice a day by flipping the doe on her back on your lap and putting one baby at a time on her belly to feed-- this does not always work well though and babies can go flying, (best to it while sitting on the floor). Here's a flipping the doe video. [ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3AkH9M3RmvM[/ame]

If flipping the doe doesn't work --- Here's a good video on hand feeding. [ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jtdQx6SCGIc[/ame]

 

[Glazcia]

She did make rip out fur to make a nest. I don't have a nest box, they are in plastic bottom cage. When I had them outside I had removed the wire part of the cage and left the plastic bottom. The bottom has high rims they can't get out of, I filled it with hay and paper shavings. I put a cardboard box over one side to hide the nest and make it more like a nest box. I moved her and the babies into my bathroom so she could be a quieter space. I put the cage back together to separate her from them, I'm worried she might attack them again. I don't know if I can trust her or not. Could she be rejecting the babies because of too much human interference?

I held her on her back to let the babies nurse off of her. She doesn't like it at all but it works okay. How often should I make her feed them?

One of the babies won't drink from her, it's really thin I'm not sure how long it has been since it's last meal. It could be too weak or was injured by the mother I can't tell. It seems like it's searching for the tit but it's not trying very hard. It did manage to get it a couple times but then the mother started kicking like she didn't want it to eat, she doesn't do that with the others. When it does get it's mouth around the nipple it just kind of gives up and sits there next to it. Is there anything I can do to help that one eat?

 

[Glazcia]

I put her back outside, she seems to like it better or at least hate it less. I've added some boxes for her to hide in she went in right away. I put the baby cage out with her but I don't think I want to trust her with them so the little cage is closed off to her. I'm going to keep trying to make her feed them.

Any more advice is very welcome, I still don't know what I'm doing.

 

[majorv]

It sounds like the mom is pretty stressed out. The one that isn't feeding sounds like it's too weak to suck. You could give her access to the kits in the morning and see if she'll nurse them. Just watch her though. They only feed them once or twice a day.

 

[squidpop]

I agree with majorv. Give her access again in the early morning. Hopefully, her milk is in and she will pressure and want to feed them on her own. You could try to make a formula to feed the runt but if he is really weak there may be nothing you can do for him. I hope they do all right, keep us posted.

 

[Glazcia]

The little runt just died. I had been feeding it a goat milk mixture, it seemed to be working yesterday. I was going to attempt to feed it again but it started retching. When it opened it's mouth wide enough I saw a piece of newspaper in its mouth it was choking on. I pulled it out with a piece of straw but it died about a minute later in my hand.

On a positive note, Rabitha is letting me place the babies under her to eat. She licks them and my hands while they nurse. She's really bad about stepping on them so I still don't leave her with them. Sometimes she tries to dig while they eat. I think that's how she killed the one from my first post.

I think the rest will be okay with these supervised feedings.