Story and questions about my rescued infant bunnies

[ALeahAlate]

I have had bunnies before and love animals, especially rescuing them. When my younger sister, who works at a ranch event center (where they conduct wedding and wine tastings and such) called me and told me that they had found 20 or so two day old bunnies that they HAD to move because of a wedding they were having, I jumped at the chance. Apparently the bunnies were found in 2 or 3 different litters scattered around a field that was going to be the parking area. Even if they had left the buns and somehow protected the nests from cars, her manager was convinced that the mothers would be scared off by the cars, people, and music and abandon the babies. My sister took 4 home that day and stopped by to let me meet our new kids. We estimated them to be about 3 days old. They looked so much like mice that I kept calling them mice on accident! Lol. We decided to keep them together until they were old enough to be weened. My sister took them home for the weekend as I worked. Unfortunately, two of the buns died due to dehydration in those two days. My sister felt horrible and I told her that they didn’t have too high of a chance to make it in the first place. They needed mamma. At least she did her best. I took the other two to my house and immediately called my vet. I took them in and she showed me how to properly syringe feed a mouse sized rabbit and get them to pee and poo. I stopped using the goats milk my sister was feeding them every 4 hours and switched to KMR with acidophilus added for good flora only twice a day. As I watched them grow week by week and open their eyes and stumble around the living room floor, I knew they were going to make it. Until at two weeks old my doe got a tear in her bum. Every time she poo’d it would get stuck and scab over and I had to hold her in my had and soak the scab off until she could go, then cover it in bag balm. :'( it was heartbreaking and I thought she would die, but she pulled through. Around 3 weeks old, she started having diarrhea and I was immediately at the vet to get her fluids and her poo screened. It was about another week until she recovered, but she did. By this time, her brother was much bigger than her, ate more, and just looked a lot more matured. It almost looks like he may have been from a different litter altogether that was a day or two older that her little. They are about seven weeks old now and hopping everywhere. Bear (the boy) eats two baby carrots with his breakfast and dinner of 40 MLs of milk and eats alfalfa and Timothy pellets throughout the day. Elle (the girl) will not eat carrots, but eats alfalfa like she’s starving and will nibble at Timothy pellets. I feed her 50 MLs or milk because she is much skinnier and sucks her milk down and then begs for more. I’m starting to dilute their milk now as I’m hoping they can be weened by a week from now. Should I postpone her weening because of all her problems and the fact that she is hardly eating any pellets? Also, I’m worried about separating them until I can get them neutered and spayed. They’re almost 8 weeks and I know I should do it soon but I don’t know how to. Right now they have a cage I put them in and they have free range of a bedroom with wood floors during the day with a carpeted rug and toys, water, alfalfa, and pellets. They are so close and spend so much of their time cuddled up together in their bed. How do I do this without submitting them both to extreme stress and heartbreak? Can I put two cages next to each other with like…. an inch of space between them? Will they be grumpy if they’re separated? :/ These buns are like my children, beings that I’ve raised them from about 5 days old until now. Any advice would be much appreciated on my interesting journey forward!

[Muchelle]

I’m afraid I can’t answer about the feeding question, but maybe I have a solution for the separating issue… you could put them in two cages next to each other then make a big pen starting from the cages’ outer sides, then divide it in the middle by attaching one more piece of fencing in between the cages. If you use a metal grid wide enough they can groom and lounge together but without being able to trespass to each other’s space. It could be a convenient temporary set-up until they are fixed, what do you think? They won’t be able to free range at the same time for a while, but at least they will be able to spend some quality time together.
Once they’ll be fixed, you can re-use the fencing for other occasions, like if you need to keep them closed off while you’re away.

[ALeahAlate]

I kind of had something like that in mind. Or dividing their room in half somehow. I’m just worried about them…. getting busy through the wire fence….. does that seem like a potential issue?

[Bam]

Thank you for taking such enormously good care of these buns!

I’m afraid I don’t know about weaning, but I do know that buns can get busy through a wire fence. If you are making a wire gate, you could put chicken-wire on both sides of a wooden frame that’s about an inch thick. I have a gate like that dividing my apt, because my bunnies are not bonded and will hurt each other bad if they get together. They still interact through the fence, and can flop next to each other on either side, but they can’t reach in to bite. Here is a recent picture where the gate is showing:

As for the skinny little girl, there are other probiotics than acidophilus that can help a skinny bun make better use of her food. Benebac is one. It has one very important type of bacteria, enterococcus faecium, that is the most prevalent gut bacteria in rabbits. It’s important that a bun gets a diverse GI microbiota, and sometimes they need a little extra help with that. It’s needed for them to be able to break down hay and other plant matter and absorb the nutrients. Probiotics in the form of live brewer’s yeast (saccaromyces cerevisiae) has been scientifically shown to help rabbits gain weight/grow. Abstract: http://link.springer.com/article/10…010-1066-6

[ALeahAlate]

Thank you so much! She has been eating quite a bit more lately and is no longer skinny. However, her pee is very dark. that wire fence is a great idea…. I’m probably going to do something like that for them. I hope they will stay bonded through the separation process though

[Author]

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