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How Old Are Baby Rabbits When They First Start Eating Sold Food

Written By Thursday, March 10, 2022 Add Comment Edit

Feeding Babe Rabbits

Feeding baby rabbits falls by and large to the mother rabbit for the kickoff iii weeks of the bunny'south life. Between 3 weeks and around 6 weeks former, the babe rabbits need less and less of mom, and more and more pellets and hay.

At the point they no longer "need" the mother for food, they are said to exist weaned.  This physiological bespeak arrives well-nigh precisely at 4 weeks of age, at least in regards to the operative discussion "need." This means that a kit orphaned for some reason at 3.v - 4 weeks old tin go straight to solids, and will not need supplemental milk unless information technology happens to as well be malnourished.

In our domestic rabbits, however, the doe permits her kits to keep correct on nursing, merely considering she can physically afford to do then. The typical litter of bunnies in your home or hutch can be vi-7 weeks of historic period, possibly older, past the time their mums forbid whatever more than nursing.

See our Raising Babe Rabbits folio for more detail on the normal care of bunnies from ii weeks of age and older, including the processes of weaning the litter.

What do yous do if something catastrophic happens to the doe?

Every once in a while tragedy strikes.  The doe could develop young doe syndrome.  You'd find her of a sudden expressionless in her muzzle, with her kits being just a week or x days old.  Or, the doe could develop mastitis, refuse to nurse the kits because of the pain, or herself die from bacterial toxins.

Any the disaster, feeding baby rabbits now falls to the rabbit possessor.

What you exercise will probable depend on how old the kits are.  Obviously, the older, the better the survival rate.

Can yous foster the baby rabbits to some other doe?

Between the age of 0 to most a calendar week, fostering is adequately easy, especially if the kits are within a couple days of the age of the foster-mother'due south kits.  Only slip the babies into the new doe'due south nest.  Practise it in the morning, and rub their little bodies gently with the new doe's fur in order to transfer her olfactory property to them.

As you replace the nestbox, give the new doe a generous helping of calf manna, whole oats, or a favorite treat, in order to distract her.  She'll think everything is fine, and by evening, all the kits should odor like they belong in the nest.  If yous're still nervous about the doe, just leave the nestbox outside the nest all mean solar day, and and so put information technology back in with the doe nigh suppertime.

The foster doe will do a much ameliorate job at feeding babe rabbits than y'all could, if you lot don't overwhelm the new doe with a dozen bunnies.  How many kits you requite her may depend on her ability to make the additional milk. Adding a source of fats, like whole oats or blackness oil sunflower seeds, volition definitely assist her augment her milk supply.

Rabbit Condition Enhancers: BOSS, Whole Oats


Feeding baby rabbits - these 16 day old kits still need their dam These very healthy ii ane/two week old baby rex rabbits even so rely nearly entirely on the doe's milk.

No does to foster the kits to?

You tin can attempt bottlefeeding. Here's some tips and techniques, depending on the age of the orphaned kits.

But offset, a sober caput'southward upwardly: Without careful attention to the bunnies' dietary needs, the s urvival rate for bottle-fed babe bunnies can be as depression as 0 - 10%, particularly if the babies are orphaned before their optics open.  That means ix out of ten (or worse) often don't survive. In that location are a number of reasons bunnies neglect to survive without their mums. Here are the most common reasons:

  • Wrong formula
  • Milk gets into the lungs and causes pneumonia
  • They don't become enough antibodies from their female parent and dice from infection
  • The kits go a fatal diarrhea.  Their intestinal bacteria population is quite sensitive. Until they start eating solids, their guts are actually sterile.  Only the formula is not sterile, nor should it exist. So if you outset introducing unnatural leaner to the guts too soon, before the normal leaner have started populating the gut, the kit gets severe enterotoxemia and dies.  This is probably the most frequent crusade of decease in rabbits orphaned in their starting time week of life.
  • The bunnies don't get plenty diet, or too much at once.
  • The bunny fails to urinate or defecate with each feeding, and the float over-fills and bursts. The doe licks her kits' bottoms as they nurse, so the rabbit-raiser needs to not overlook this lilliputian detail of rabbit-maternity.  You lot can use a wet finger, or a soft moistened tissue.  Make motions equally the doe would, similar you're cleaning the bunny's privates.  Information technology might take a few minutes, at to the lowest degree at first, until y'all get the desired response. I'll tell y'all this - that footling stream of urine can shoot out a good 4 feet!


Proven Guidelines for Feeding
Baby Rabbits

Bottlefeeding a cottontail bunny

Lou Rea Kenyon, a registered nurse and a licensed wildlife rehabilitation proficient, has successfully saved bunny-lives for over 17 years.  She is the possessor of Nutkin's Nest Wild animals Rehabilitation Eye.

This is where we would ship you directly to her wild-cottontail-feeding protocols, notwithstanding her website has disappeared from the spider web.

With her permission however, we summarized Ms. Kenyon'due south instructions on our Feeding Wild Rabbits page, because her instructions for feeding babe rabbits work for both cottontails and orphan domestic rabbit bunnies.

Rabbit Milk Replacement Suggestions

We recommend Goat'south Milk Esbilac, or Esbilac Milk Replacer for Puppies. Whatever formula you lot use to hand-feed bunnies, information technology volition still need the addition of fat. The easiest way to do this is to use heavy cream.

Bene-Bac (or healthy cecotropes) will be some other essential ingredient of the milk formula in order to prevent fatal diarrhea.

  • Bene-Bac in Majority

Run across Feeding Wild Rabbits for the formulas and details , including some suggestions should you have been surprised by the sudden expiry of a doe, and not have on hand whatever formula.

Expert luck with feeding baby rabbits!

Feeding babe rabbits orphaned at
3 or iii.5 weeks old

By three weeks old, babe rabbits are already nibbling pellets and hay, but they withal need mother'south milk. They may also even so be at hazard for life-threatening bunny diarrhea. Nevertheless, their survival rate improves dramatically past 3.5 weeks old, even on but excellent rabbit pellets and water.

This Bunny Nutrient is Currently the All-time I Have Plant:

  • Besides providing pellets and alfalfa hay, some very dry (non-moldy) staff of life soaked with raw, unpasteurized cow's or caprine animal'southward milk might be a good milk substitute for feeding baby rabbits. (Raw milk available from some dairy farms and very possibly at a nearby health nutrient store, depending on the state yous live in). Or, soak the dry staff of life in Kitten Milk Replacer (KMR). Offer this to the kits.
  • If you tin get them to take it, great.  Otherwise, supplement with canteen feedings once a day for a week or so.
  • Some young bunnies tin can learn to drink formula from a basin. Don't go out a bowl of bunny-milk in the muzzle for more 1/two hour, lest they walk in information technology and contaminate it with droppings.
  • By the time they're 4 to 4 1/2 weeks old, they will be fine on high-poly peptide pellets (17-eighteen% protein), an oil supplement (whole oats, black oil sunflower seeds, or real wheat germ oil), and alfalfa or grass hay.  (Alfalfa hay is practiced for these youngsters, being high in protein and suitable for their rapid-growth needs.)
  • Always continue an eye on their rumps, to ensure they aren't developing bunny-diarrhea. Without mama'south milk, the hazard for disrupted gut bacteria is great.  At the start sign, feed the bunny a slurry of formula mixed with 1-2 good for you cecotrope 'packets' (a unmarried entire grape-like cluster of cecotrope). At the same time, supercede all feeds with grass hay, till their rumps clear up, hopefully 24 - 72 hours.  Then reintroduce their regular rabbit nutrition.


Click hither for lots more on feeding orphan infant rabbits and cottontails

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Source: https://www.raising-rabbits.com/feeding-baby-rabbits.html

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