babies perished

[Connie]

I just had a loss of all 6 babies from a doe who has had a successful litter in the past. Conditions were fine, no interventions, touching , draft, anything. Babies were born, looked chubby, but within 3 days , she stopped caring for them, left them uncovered and all but one died. The last one I tried to hand-raise looked improved for 1 1/2 days, was drinking 1/2 & 1/2 squirming around, but also died the following day.
I had not fed the baby in the night. Please advise of any helpful advice. What happened?

[Dwarfbunny87]

We check our babies daily. Touching them will not cause the doe to harm them. We just pull the nest box out of the cage, check them and put them back with mom. We do this everday.

Unless you check them you can't know if the doe is taking care of them. Babies that are being fed will look like they swallowed a golf ball. The doe should feed them for the 1st time in about 24 hours from birth. If the doe never nursed them they will die in about 3 days.

Trying to handraise newborns is extremely hard to do sucessfully.

Based on my years of experience raising rabbits, I'd say she didn't produce any milk for them.

Here's what you can do if you breed her again. Go buy some Calf Manna pellets from a livestock feed dealer or some rabbit cage suppliers sell small quantities of it. Otherwise the smallest bag you can get is 25 lbs. and it runs about $15.
Anyhow, about 3 days before she is due to kindle (give birth) start giving her 1 teaspoon of the Calf Manna pellets per day along with her regular rabbit pellets. Keep giving this to her for the first 3-4 weeks, making sure she is the only one to eat the Calf Manna pellets and not the babies. Calf Manna is 22% Protein. The boost in Protein will cause her to be able to produce milk and keep producing it.

I'm sorry that you lost them but at least now you have a solution for the next time.

If you need more help in the future or have any questions, please feel free to ask me.

Pat
Carroll's Half Pints Rabbitry
Quality Netherland Dwarfs
http://www.carrollshalfpints.weebly.com