1 week old baby rabbit abnormal pee

[Lin_0330]

Hi,

My rabbit gave birth to 8 baby rabbits, this is her first litter and she doesn’t know what to do.
And she doesn’t have any milk either. I have tried to give her all sort of food that suppose to help but it didn’t work.
I have taken the baby rabbit from day 3 and bottle feeding them two times a day.
Now they are on day 8 and I still have 8/8 survivors.
However, this morning I have notice the colour of the pee is a bit red.
I am very concerned as this never happen before, they are very active and willing to drink milk.
Not sure if this is to do with the concentration of the milk or any kind of illness?
My local vet doesn’t take rabbit which is very annoying.
Can anyone give some idea? If this is really abnormal I will get them to see a small animal specialist vet.

Thanks!!!

 

[ButtonquailGirl14]

I can't help you here...I'm sorry, I've never owned rabbits, much less had Gabby ones with a strange situation!

 

[cassie]

If they are active and hungry I wouldn't worry about it. BTW, rabbits only feed their babies once a day or so. I am not suggesting you do anything different because it seems to be working, but is it possible the doe is taking care of the babies and you just don't know it?

 

[Lin_0330]

If they are active and hungry I wouldn't worry about it. BTW, rabbits only feed their babies once a day or so. I am not suggesting you do anything different because it seems to be working, but is it possible the doe is taking care of the babies and you just don't know it?

I have set camera and watched her for 48 hours and the mother has not go near to the baby at all. I have checked on the mother’s belly and noticed she has not pulled her fur to make a proper nest. I have tried to force feed by holding the mother and let baby suck her nibbles but there was no milk at all. So I took action of bottle feeding from day 3. And it is a week now, I have tried everyday to hold the mother and let baby suckle but no, there is no milk. I am bottle feeding them twice because I thought milk replacement is not as good as mother rabbit’s milk.
Thanks

 

[cassie]

It sounds like you have got everything covered. The fact that the babies are alive and doing well proves that you are doing everything right. Keep us posted.

 

[ButtonquailGirl14]

I'm just curious, do you have any other female rabbits that were in with her? Q

 

[Lin_0330]

I'm just curious, do you have any other female rabbits that were in with her? Q

She does have a female roommate. They love each other. I have a very big garden and they share the same run. I didn’t know she was pregnant at first as I kept male in a different run but ONCE he escaped to the female rabbit run and 1 month later I have a litter (the other female rabbit was not pregnant).
She gave birth just after I came home from work, the process took around 10mins, I soon isolated the other female and did some research online. I was concerned her instinct and hormones were not triggered so I set camera for observation. And indeed she seems she abandoned the baby (didn’t go near to them, has not pulled belly fur, no milk, no interest at all).

The babies are still all doing alright, i think it was the milk concentration caused dark colour pee. Finger crossed they will all be ok. This is my first time raising babies as all my other animals are all neutered. Was going to neuter the rabbit as well but my local vet doesn’t take rabbit and I thought they are still very young (6 months old) and male and female are isolated. But didn’t thought rabbit is such an escape artist.....

 

[ButtonquailGirl14]

She does have a female roommate. They love each other. I have a very big garden and they share the same run. I didn’t know she was pregnant at first as I kept male in a different run but ONCE he escaped to the female rabbit run and 1 month later I have a litter (the other female rabbit was not pregnant).
She gave birth just after I came home from work, the process took around 10mins, I soon isolated the other female and did some research online. I was concerned her instinct and hormones were not triggered so I set camera for observation. And indeed she seems she abandoned the baby (didn’t go near to them, has not pulled belly fur, no milk, no interest at all).

The babies are still all doing alright, i think it was the milk concentration caused dark colour pee. Finger crossed they will all be ok. This is my first time raising babies as all my other animals are all neutered. Was going to neuter the rabbit as well but my local vet doesn’t take rabbit and I thought they are still very young (6 months old) and male and female are isolated. But didn’t thought rabbit is such an escape artist.....

are you 100% sure they aren't the other females babies?

 

[Lin_0330]

are you 100% sure they aren't the other females babies?

1000%
They are totally different breed. The mother rabbit is a New Zealand white. The other female is a orange french lop. The male is also a New Zealand white. What’s more I saw she giving birth (not exactly, she was hiding in her nest) but there is blood around the mother rabbit butt when she came out. Then I was like OMGGGGGGG, and immediatly isolated the other female rabbit.

 

[MountainGaurdian]

Rabbits are one of the toughest animals to bottle raise.

Rabbit milk is quite different from other milks, it creates a curd of cheese basically in the young rabbits stomach to last it basically all day while the mother is away grazing and eating. This curd is slow to digest and will last the baby rabbit many hours.

When you feed other milks they do not create this curd and tend to give the rabbits the runs. We lost one of our first mother rabbits and had young babies and we called the local vet to ask what to do and she basically told us that even vets don't any effective way to feed baby rabbits.

How do you know that the mom isn't feeding the babies? You do realize that they will only feed maybe two to three times a day right. I always kept a two room cage setup, one side with a small raised hole for the mom rabbit to access and then I would pack it full of hay which gave her place to make a nest for the babies. The mom would stay out and about in the main cage most of the day and then go in and feed the babies two or three times a day until the babies got a bit older. Once they were old enough to escape the den on their own I moved them to a much larger pen so that mom could get away from the babies, otherwise they get a bit overbearing.

One has to be careful about intervening when it comes to mother nature, mother nature is vastly more complex than we generally realize and about all we manage to do most of the time is get in the way of mother nature.