Hand Rearing Orphan Baby Rabbits
The Successful Hand-Rearing of Rabbits
By Mairwen Guard MBE
The hand-rearing of baby rabbits is rarely successful. Experience is essential as the technique is quite different from that needed for other species, and most babies rabbits die as a result of accidentally feeding too fast and the milk being inhaled into the lungs. Sadly, babies affected in this way die from pneumonia within two to three days.
Therefore, before you even consider hand-rearing infant rabbits, you must first be sure that this drastic action is justified and essential. If, for example, the babies are orphans, an alternative to hand-rearing would be placing the young with another litter if they are only a few days apart in age.
A common mistake by inexperienced rabbit keepers is to assume that if they don’t see the mother paying regular attention to her litter, she must be rejecting them. Nothing could be further from the truth. Mum only feeds her litter for 4-5 minutes once a day, usually during the night, and during the rest of the time she will show no interest in them whatsoever. This is probably a carry-over from wild rabbit instincts where it is essential that the mother does not lead predators to the nest site and therefore a brief visit once a day increases the chances of survival of the litter. If a baby accidentally gets carried out of the nest by hanging on to a teat, the mother will make no effort to put it back in the nest. She appears not to recognise the youngster as one of her litter, and sadly the baby is at high risk of being mutilated or dying from cold unless spotted by the owner and placed back in the nest.
If you are absolutely certain that mum is ignoring the babies (the skin of such babies appears to be too big for their bodies, and they have a wrinkled appearance), but she appears to have milk, you could try holding the mother steady and placing one or two babies at a time underneath her so that they can feed. Sometimes the stress of this procedure can cause mum’s milk to dry up, but it is definitely worth a try. If mum appears to have no milk after 2 – 3 days, an injection given by the vet could resolve the situation.
Once you are sure that the babies must be hand-reared, make sure you have all the equipment needed for the task, and are willing to spare the considerable amount of your time needed to be successful. Sometimes it is best to assume you will have losses, and any that survive are a bonus. If you are unsure that you want to take on this daunting task, contact your local rescue centre or veterinary surgeon to arrange for them to be taken in. Thankfully, nature has decreed that by 31 days old the babies must be independent due to mum usually having another litter, so at least you know that the intensive care only lasts for just over a month, although hand-reared babies have special dietary needs until 3-4 months of age (see post-weaning care, below). The eyes of baby rabbits open between 10-12 days of age, although they can hear by about the fifth day.
The handreading of baby wild rabbits is basically the same to start with, but you must bear in mind that ultimately they will need to be be rehabilitated and released as the large majority will not be at all happy in captivity and will constantly try to escape. With this in mind you must not try to make pets of them, and your only contact should be to clean and feed them. There are more details on this later on. The only exception to this is individuals that are permanently damaged in some way so as to make survival in the wild not feasible, or they become too tame, but it is up to the carer to make sure that this does not happen!
Detailed below is the equipment required to hand-rear baby rabbits. If you have any queries or need advice at any point, then contact me on (01373) 864222 and I will do my best to help. Good luck!
Milk Formula
Cimicat milk substitute (powder) made by Petlife International Limited, Bury St. Edmunds, Suffolk, available from most Veterinary Surgeries (they may have to order some in specially). There are now other similar products available, one of the newest being Lactol Gold Kitten Milk. If you do try one an alternative to Cimicat, let me know how you get on so that I can share the results with other readers.
Avipro (probiotic) or similar product, usually available from your vet.
Abidec multivitamin drops, available from chemist/supermarkets, not essential but can be useful.
Equipment Required
Box (high sided or with lid, allow for passage of air and daylight) lined with a towel/shavings with hay on top, placed in a warm area (important for newborns). This will need to be swapped for a larger more suitable cage as the babies grow and become more active, such as a plastic indoor cage sold in most pet shops. If the mother managed to pull fur to line the nest, then it is a good idea to use this to help keep newborn babies warm. Change the bedding daily or as required. You will also need another smaller box for use during the feeding routine (see below).
Not essential but useful is a mug/cup warmer which keeps the milk warm throughout the feeding routine (which can take quite a while depending on how many babies there are). Be careful not to let the milk get too hot, however, as the smaller the volume of milk the quicker it will heat up, so you may need to put the cup on and off the warmer to keep the temperature just right.
There are two main ways to foster feed:
By syringe – 1ml syringes (available from your vet or chemist shop); 2ml syringe for rabbits over 3 weeks old and feeding well (available from your vet). This size is much more difficult to use as it is harder to control the volume of milk consumed at one time. I personally prefer to use 1 ml syringes throughout, even although the process takes longer as you have to refill more often.
By “bottle” – foster feeding set (Catac Products tel. no. Tel. 08453 70 70 40, e-mail. sales@catacproducts.com, and extra teats (small, ST1).
For the experienced handler only, nasal gastric tubing (Kruuse UK 3.5fr x 16” tel. no. 01977 681523) can be a life saving extra – attach the tubing to a 5ml syringe and cut the tubing to allow a length of about 10cm. Discard the rest of the tubing.
If the babies are already over two weeks old, it is easier and safer to offer them the milk in a very shallow dish, such as a jam jar top. Place the dish on something to raise it about an inch off the floor and encourage the babies to drink by dipping your finger in the milk and smearing some beneath their noses. They should get the hang of lapping the milk quite quickly, and let them take as much as they want at feeding time. More on quantities and timings later in this article.
Preparation Of Milk Substitute
1 part Cimicat : 3.0 parts cooled boiled water.
¼ - ½ teaspoon Avipro.
0.5ml – 1ml Abidec depending on the quantity of milk prepared.
Enough milk should be prepared at a time to allow for one day’s feeds, making it fresh daily and keeping it in the fridge between feeds. Syringes, teats and other feeding equipment can be left soaking in a fresh solution of Miltons Fluid between feeds, rinsing thoroughly before use.
Establishing a Feeding Regime
It is vital that newborn babies are kept reasonably warm until their fur has grown sufficiently (around 7 days old). This is especially important for single orphans, although care must be taken not to let them overheat – the babies must always have the option of crawling away from the heat source if they need to.
The younger the baby is the more difficult it is to hand-rear successfully. There are two main factors responsible for this. Firstly, it is very difficult to control the amount of milk going into the rabbit’s mouth at a time, and if care is not taken it will breath milk into its lungs (usually confirmed by milk coming out of the nose) resulting in aspiration pneumonia which is usually fatal. This should not be confused with the accidental intake of milk up the nose as apposed to into the lungs and back down the nose – the former not usually causing major damage. Secondly, baby rabbits need their mother’s milk not only as a source of nourishment but also to supply them with the appropriate gut bacteria for them to be able to digest their food (milk) properly. Without this they fail to thrive, develop diarrhoea and die. This is the reason why probiotics are added to the milk substitute with every feed. It is common for hand-reared babies to have poor tolerance of change of diet or the addition of fresh food such as vegetables.
It must be remembered that although the mother rabbit only feeds her babies briefly once a day, the milk being fed during hand-rearing is only a substitute and is not as rich as the “real thing” and therefore you need to feed the orphans 3 or 4 times a day, spacing the feeding times as evenly as possible. It is not necessary to feed during the night unless they are not feeding well, in which case you need to feed them every few hours until they are taking a few mls at a time. The quantity of milk taken varies from infant to infant and from one feed to another. The guide below is compiled from a study I carried out when hand-rearing 2 litters of 6 orphaned babies each, to give an indication how much you can expect a baby to take on a daily basis. Whilst weighing individual babies is useful to indicate whether their weight is increasing steadily, the actual weight should not be compared with other charts as individuals vary enormously in weight depending on breed, size of litter, and general health making such comparisons meaningless. You are aiming for a slow (although sometimes inconsistent) weight increase.
A baby rabbit of 1 day old would consume on average 2 mls of milk daily. By 5 days the volume would increase to about 12 ml. At 10 days it would increase again to about 15 mls, by 15 days increasing to 22 mls, 20 days increasing to about 27 mls, 25 days to about 30 mls. By 30 days of age you will expect to see a decline to about 20 mls, and by 35 days a rapid decline to less than 5 mls or weaned altogether.
Baby rabbits can take 2-3 days before they settle into a feeding pattern, and if there are several to be hand-reared it is beneficial to feed all babies once, placing each one in the smaller box after feeding as you go along to ensure that you don’t miss anyone, and then “go round again” to make sure they have all had enough to last until the next feed. It is common for a baby who has only taken a small amount at the first “sitting” to be very greedy at the next. Again, replace the babies one at a time into their “home” cage when they have had their second feed. They should have the appearance of looking content and “full”, the milk in the stomach being visible through the skin in very young babies. The appearance of nice round, full bellies should not, however, be confused with “bloat”, an extremely serious condition which is caused by the gut becoming static and with the resulting build up of gases. A rabbit with bloat will not feed normally, and in the latter stages will not eat or drink at all. Immediate assistance from an experienced vet is essential, but sadly this condition is often fatal.
The milk should be warm but not hot (test it by putting a few drops on the back of your hand). Hold the infant with one hand whilst gently inserting the teat or syringe into the mouth with the other. They often wriggle around and jump whilst feeding so take care not to drop them! If the babies are under 6 days old you will need to stimulate urination. This is a straightforward task. After each baby has been fed, wet a finger or cotton bud in warm water and gently tap or stroke the genital area. Have a tissue ready!
By about 3 weeks of age the babies will start to nibble on hay, followed shortly afterwards by eating small amounts of rabbit food. Use a good brand of food such as Burgess Excel Junior. At this point you will need to introduce a water bottle at a suitable height so they can reach it, enabling them to drink ad lib. The quantities eaten will gradually increase until about 4½ weeks where you should find that they will no longer want milk feeds at all. If you find you have one or two babies who are still enjoying the milk routine, gradually wean them off by cutting out one feed a day every few days until they are receiving no milk at all.
It is common for hand-reared babies to have poor tolerance of change of diet or the sudden addition of fresh food such as vegetables. It is very disheartening to successfully hand-rear young rabbits to then lose them at 10 or more weeks old due to changing the diet suddenly. Vegetables such as celery, spring greens and brocolli can be given but this must be done extremely slowly, and by this I mean a thumb-nail sized piece of celery per litter to start with, and gradually over a period of weeks increase the levels and variety. I never give carrot or apple to young baby rabbits, especially hand-reared ones. There are some cases where you are best to hold off introducing fresh food until the babies are at least 4 months old, and even then it must be introduced very gradually. The only exception to this rule is if hand-rearing wild rabbits, as in these circumstances it is vital that they are offered a wide variety of grasses and other plants that they would normally find in the wild from about 3 weeks onwards. Stick rigidly to one type of good quality dried food, and if there has to be a change at any stage, mix the two foods together for at least a couple of weeks, gradually increasing the new variety until the change over has been made.
Very little (if any) dried food should be offered to baby wild rabbits as it will aid in their rehabilitation for release in the wild if they are given as natural a diet as possible.
Tube Feeding (for experienced handlers only)
Tube feeding (passing a tube from the mouth down into the stomach) should not be attempted unless suitably skilled to carry out the procedure as severe injury could result. It is, however, a very useful technique for very weak infants who have no energy or lack the will to feed. Nasal gastric tubing (see above for specifications) suitably lubricated and attached to a 5ml syringe provides an efficient method of feeding such individuals in the short term, aiming for a volume of about 4mls for newborns and increasing the volume for older babies appropriately.
Post-weaning care
As mentioned earlier, hand-reared baby rabbits are more prone to digestive upsets than mother-reared babies, and it is vitally important to stick rigidly to the type of feed used, and not to introduce fresh food suddenly, or hold off completely until at least 4 months of age. Post-weaning enteritis (mucoid enteropathy) usually kills within hours, and appears to be brought on by a change of pH (change of acidity/alkalinity) in the gut resulting in the overgrowth of “hostile” bacteria such as Clostridia and E. coli which replaces the natural “friendly” bacteria. Absorption and digestion is therefore adversely affected, resulting in bloat and/or diarrhoea, dehydration and death. Stress can also play an important part in triggering post-weaning enteritis, so care must be taken to keep this to a minimum, especially is the rabbit is re-homed before 4 months old. See the article on mucoid enteritis elsewhere on the web site.
When weaning wild rabbits it is important to remember what their normal diet would be if they were still living in the wild, so instead of introducing dried food, you want instead to be introducing grass and other vegetation as mentioned above. Hay of course must always be available. Water should be offered in a shallow bowl, not a bottle. Your aim with wild babies (once they are weaned and ready) is to house them outside in a safe run with a hutch attached, your only contact with them being to provide food, water (in a shallow bowl) and bedding and to clean out their hutch. Within a couple of weeks, every time you set foot in the garden to attend to them they should be immediately running into their hutch to hide. This is good news and means that you can start planning where they can be safely released. Make sure that when you put them outside initially there is not too much of a temperature difference between where they were living inside and the outside temperature. If it is in the early part of the year you will need to harden them off gradually before leaving them outside permanently.
Please do not be selfish about wild rabbits and be tempted to try and make pets of them. They are wild creatures with very strong instincts and it is extremely rare for a truely wild rabbit to be happy in captivity. If you can't bear to rehabilitate and release it, give it to a wildlife centre who will do the process for you.
Topics of interest to find out about
The following are important topics that every responsible rabbit owner should know about. Try various rabbit welfare sites on the internet or, if you have a good vet, speak to him or her about it.
E. cuniculi (a common parasite)
Mucoid enteritis
Dental disease
VHD and myxomatosis vaccinations
Neutering
Matching-up
