How to Hand-Feed Rabbit Kits

Reader Contribution by Sarah Cuthill
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A few months ago, I had a ornery rabbit doe whose milk had not come in to feed her newborn litter of kits. This was not her first litter — in fact, she was an experience breeder, but for some reason, she was not lactating like she should have been. Unlike many other mammals, rabbit mothers only nurse their young once, maybe twice, a day and always when you’re not looking. So, most of the time it seems like a rabbit is neglecting her young, when actually her instincts to stay away from her litter for their own safety have kicked in. The only time you really need to worry that the kits, or baby rabbits, are not getting the milk they need is if they do not appear to have been fed within the first 24 hours.

Rabbit kits that have been fed will have obviously full bellies, almost as if they have eaten a giant grape and are about to burst. A kit that has not been fed will be skinny, withered, and wrinkled. Generally, if you have to ask if a rabbit is full, it isn’t.

So, that’s where I was with this litter of six rabbit kits. They were over 48-hours-old and their mother hadn’t fed them yet. When I held one of them, they sniffed around my hand looking for that much-needed milk. The first thing I tried was to flip the doe over and set each kit on her belly to see if the kits would latch onto the doe’s nipple. Every kit tried his best, but their dam just was not lactating and they certainly seemed frustrated.

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