The development of newborn rabbits by day, how they look and the rules of care
There are many complexities in raising newborn rabbits that require attention. If you do not know the most important rules for handling rabbits, you can lose the entire offspring, and with it financial investment and labor costs. To prevent this from happening, it is necessary to prepare for possible difficulties long before buying rabbits, to obtain the necessary theoretical knowledge.
Okrol
In rabbits, the duration of pregnancy reaches a month. The approaching birth is indicated by a change in the behavior of the female. She begins to prepare the nest using various soft materials and plucking fluff from her breast and belly. She needs help by placing wooden boxes filled with straw or hay. During this period, the rabbit is especially fearful, so you need to try to annoy and frighten her less. Okrol most often happens at night, the animal copes with the process on its own, biting the umbilical cord and licking newborn rabbits.
What do newborn rabbits look like?
Newborn rabbits are born naked, blind and deaf. At first, they are completely dependent on the female, but do not need her constant presence. Novice rabbit breeders are alarmed by the fact that the rabbit may be absent from the nest, but this is normal behavior for these animals.
Three days after birth, fluff begins to grow on the little rabbit's body. They begin to see newborn rabbits after 10 days, gradually the fluff is replaced by normal wool, characteristic of the breed.
Is it possible to take rabbits in hand?
It is believed that newborns should not be touched because the mother may abandon the offspring. But this is not entirely true. You can not touch with bare hands, unnecessarily and too often. After birth, this must be done, especially at the first birth. This is how dead or weak rabbits are revealed, which can still be saved.
The examination is carried out with gloves, quickly, but without sudden movements, noise and fuss, so as not to frighten the nervous mother, otherwise she may abandon the nest. As a last resort, you can thoroughly wash your hands with unscented soap, because the rabbit can leave offspring precisely because of an extraneous aroma or because of the stress caused by the invasion.
Stages of growth and development of babies
Rabbits grow and mature quickly. 15-20 days after birth, their mass increases 10 times.The development of newborn rabbits by day is as follows:
- From birth and during the first 10-12 days, the rabbits are helpless, blind, deaf, feed on mother's milk and depend on her care.
- After 3 days, fluff begins to grow on the body of the animals, which gradually turns into a full-fledged coat.
- After a week, the rabbits develop hearing.
- After 10-14 days, the rabbits acquire the ability to see.
- They begin to eat independently at 16-20 days of age. Very "early" rabbits, striving for independence after 16 days, should receive milder nutrition as their first meal, for example, grated carrots.
- After 3 weeks, the vast majority of rabbits switch to self-feeding.
- Matured rabbits can be transferred from the queen cell.
Babies need to be looked after carefully, because they are prone to illness, and rabbits may refuse to feed.
Newborn care
In order to successfully raise newborn rabbits, the owners need to know the basic rules for handling them.
Breeding inspection
After birth, it is imperative to examine the rabbits. There may be many newborns in the litter, but no more than 8 babies per female should be left for normal rearing. On examination, you need to immediately remove the dead, and start looking after the weakened rabbits. "Superfluous" rabbits can be planted with another female giving birth or try to feed them artificially.
Care problems
The main condition for success, especially at first birth, is the complete absence of stress and anxiety for the animals. Otherwise, the female may abandon the offspring or even kill her children. This can also happen if there are too many rabbits in the litter, if weak offspring are left in the nest, or if the female is often disturbed.
There is a situation when the offspring is in trouble due to the fact that the female after the birth is in sexual heat. To exclude unpleasant incidents, the rabbit is placed next to the male. After fertilization, the female calms down, but she and the newborn rabbits must be constantly monitored, as she may stop feeding them.
If okrol happened in winter, you need to take care of heating, and also add cotton wool to the nest if there is little fluff in it. The rabbit must eat abundantly and variedly, she is given only warm and clean water.
Tips for breeders when not feeding
If the female refused to feed the rabbits, you need to make sure that the following problems are not the reasons for this:
- Lack of milk or poor quality milk, as well as lack of lactation.
- Sore, sore nipples.
- Hormonal changes in the female's body.
- Stressful situation.
You need to try to eliminate the reasons for refusing to feed, and if this does not help, start feeding the rabbits in other ways.
Changing to another female
If there is another rabbit on the farm who has recently given birth to offspring, you can add the rabbits left without the support of the mother to her. To do this, the new rabbit is distracted, for example, with food, and the cubs are carefully placed in the nest. Hands must be clean or with gloves. If there are a lot of rabbits, it is better to distribute them over several nests.
Forced feeding
If the female refuses to feed the offspring, but she has milk and it is of good quality, force feeding is used. To do this, one person holds the rabbit lying on its side, the second puts the rabbits to the nipples. When they are full, they will round up, and they can be taken from the mother.
Artificial feeding
If the female dies, gets sick, does not have milk or behaves aggressively towards the offspring, the rabbits will have to be fed artificially. Specialized mixtures or formulations based on goat milk are used (cow's milk is undesirable).
Newborn rabbits are fed from a syringe or pipette. The daily dose starts with 5 milliliters of milk, and gradually doubles. After the expiration of 14 days, you can give mashed vegetable puree, monitoring the reactions of the baby's body.
Settling and sorting of rabbits
When breeding rabbits, the following shedding periods are used:
- On the 28th day. It is used in the event that the female happened to a rabbit after birth. Do not abuse this method, as it greatly weakens the rabbit, and the rabbits are not yet ready for an independent life.
- 35-40 days. It is necessary to ensure that the rabbits do not start to overeat.
- In 40-45 days. Optimal time for weaning.
- 56-60 days. This period is called broiler jigging, because young animals go to slaughter immediately or after 10-20 days of intensive feeding.
It is advisable to sort the rabbits when jigging, first separating the strongest and strongest. The decrease in the "mouths" leads to the fact that the weakened and small rabbits begin to grow intensively and are compared in weight and size with the previously planted brothers and sisters. The grown rabbits are sorted by gender.
Possible problems in raising young stock
Frequent problems with newborn rabbits occur at the first birth, but an experienced female rabbits may die.
Newborn rabbits die
There is a strong belief that a rabbit can kill her own newborn rabbits. This happens, but very rarely. Most often, bite marks on the little bodies indicate the inexperience of the mother, who tried to help the offspring to be born or bit off the umbilical cord.
Newborn rabbits can die very quickly if infected. This will require the intervention of a veterinarian.
The female scatters the cubs
There may be several reasons for this:
- Inexperienced mother.
- Lack of maternal instinct.
- Sexual hunting.
- It's too cold in the nest.
- Weakened or sick offspring.
- Mastitis or other breast problems.
- Accidental falling out of the rabbit nest.
- Human interference, noise, stress, glare.
To preserve the offspring, you need to carefully monitor the behavior and actions of the mother.
Rabbits squeak
There are two reasons for this - hunger and cold. Well-fed and warmed-up newborn rabbits behave quietly and calmly.
Babies leave the nest early
This is most often due to malnutrition. The female may have little milk or it is insufficiently nutritious, so the young seek to find food outside the nest. The rabbits need to be weighed and, if there is a lack of mass for their age, it is necessary to improve the rabbit's diet and / or start feeding them with milk mixtures.
Despite the fact that the rabbits began to feed on their own, it is too early to wean them from their mother. This can be done in 40-45 days.
Newborn rabbits are weak and defenseless, so owners will have to put in a lot of effort in order to maintain and raise the offspring. But if this succeeds, the number of rabbits will begin to grow exponentially, as will the material well-being of their owners.
