Sunday 1 June 2014

Poor baby rabbits

Several of Mrs Robinsons litter have died, we are not sure why. She only has 5 out of the 11 left now. They just seem to stop eating and then quite shortly later they have a fit and die. It seems that baby rabbits are quite susceptible to various things as they transition from milk to solids. We have been feeding the babies grass along with the mothers. Many things recommend not feeding rabbits grass until they are 6 months, but other people who raise meat rabbits have found that in most cases they are fine if fed grass if that is what the mother is eating - because they get their gut flora by eating special poo from the mother called cecotropes (what facinating things one learns having animals!) so they can cope with whatever she is eating.  have stopped letting the babies get access to the pellets, and have changed from grass to hay, but two more have died since then. 
Reading the internet is always scary when one has sick animals as there are so many horrible horrible diseases out there. The worry of course is that it is contagious.
It started when I removed the nest box which makes me wonder if it it an issue with them eating things that have been in their mothers urine, she has always seemd to me to have some slight kidney issue as she drinks and pees a lot and it is very smelly. Nice!

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