Mary Allen
Young rabbits are considered sensitive, and failures in rearing are simply part of it according to common opinion. However, many deaths can be avoided using a few tricks.
Young rabbits are cute, it’s a pleasure to watch them grow up. Less gratifying are cub deaths, which are all too often viewed as fateful and inevitable. Attention and good observation prevent some small tragedies.
The first critical phase is childbirth. It usually takes place after a gestation period of 31 days. For very small litters, the gestation period may take longer; the risk of a difficult birth or stillbirth increases. It, therefore, makes sense to feed pregnant females uterine-stimulating herbs such as mugwort (Artemisia vulgaris) or rosemary from day 33 onwards. Raspberry leaves also make childbirth easier and should be given in small quantities (1-2 leaves per day) in the second half of the gestation period.
The young are usually born in the prepared nest. Nervous rabbits sometimes give birth to their young scattered around the barn. The same happens with difficult births. If you notice it in time, you can warm up the little ones and then put them in the nest. The doe receives a gentle abdominal massage; this stimulates the mammary glands and helps the mother return to the normal postpartum routine. Lemon balm is also fed to nervous does, which calms them down and also stimulates milk production.
Most often, nestlings die when they get out of the nest, cannot find their way back, and freeze to death. This happens especially when milk is scarce. The offspring, on the other hand, stay calm in the nest. The administration of Schuessler No. 2 (Calcium phosphoricum D6) causes milk to come in quickly, and various herbs ensure that there is enough milk. Here you can download a table with particularly suitable plants.
Females become rammed again shortly after birth. Usually, you don’t notice any change in behavior, but there are bundles of temperament that mark the nest with urine and rummage through the ups and downs of the hormones. Such problems arise more frequently when the doe cannot keep too close to the nest.
Healthy Intestinal Flora, Healthy Young Animals
To understand this, it helps to look at the relatives living in the wild: mother wild rabbits dig a separate burrow that serves as a nursery for the little ones. They only visit the nest once a day, suckle the young, and then dig up the burrow again. Nature does not intend for a mother rabbit to have the smell of a nest in her nose all the time; this can cause them to return to the nest again and again. At best, the nestlings are unnecessarily disturbed, using up energy that could be better spent on heat production and development, at worst, the mother rabbit ruffles the nest, injuring the young. Large litter stalls or double stalls can help. Double stalls have the advantage that particularly nervous females can only be let into the nest for a few days to suckle. As soon as they have become quiet, the connecting door to the nest compartment remains open again.
The next critical phase in a young rabbit’s life is building a good intestinal flora. Rabbits are born with sterile intestines and remain so for about two weeks. The mother then deposits caecal feces in the nest several times, which the little ones ingest and inoculate their intestines with vital intestinal bacteria. In order for the good ones to reproduce from the colorful mix of microorganisms, young animals in the nest always need the smallest amounts of hay. They nibble on it at a tender age and thus provide their intestinal bacteria with the necessary fiber-rich food. As soon as the little ones come out of the nest to eat, selected herbs are given to strengthen the physiologically good intestinal flora and to inhibit coccidia and other undesirable intestinal dwellers.
This brings us to the next hurdle to overcome: coccidia are single-celled parasites found in virtually every rabbit’s gut. They can get out of hand in weakened animals and lead to digestive problems, poor growth, and death, especially in young animals with immature immune systems. The coccidial agents contained in many ready-made feeds offer certain protection – as long as the parasites are not resistant to them. Herbs, on the other hand, with their large number of inhibiting substances make it impossible for the parasites to develop resistance.
A healthy intestinal flora also helps to keep coccidia at bay, and last but not least, strict hygiene in the stable. Coccidia goes through a complicated development cycle. It is important to know that so-called oocysts (fertilized egg cells) are excreted with feces. These must mature in the barn for a few days so that they can release infectious larvae when ingested by the rabbit. These penetrate into the intestinal cells and do their destructive work there. The maturation time of the oocysts depends on the ambient temperature, but you can count on about two to three days. If you clear the manure out of the barn every three days, you greatly reduce the number of mature oocysts and in this simple way lower the infection pressure.
Happy Growth is Genetically Determined
Many breeders are proud when their animals grow happily, i.e. put on a lot of weight in a short time, and therefore feed them large quantities of concentrated feed. However, this in no way corresponds to the physiology of the rabbit. Its digestion is adapted to rather low-content food, which the intestinal flora helps to break down. Happy growth is certainly a positive trait, but it must be in the genes of the breeding lines and does not come from the feed sack. So restraint with concentrated feed is recommended because too much changes the intestinal flora: While an adapted high-fiber diet favors the “good” bacteria, the problematic clostridia and coliform bacteria get the upper hand if you feed too many easily digestible carbohydrates.
Clostridia are responsible for the fatal intestinal paralysis that can occur in the course of enterocolitis, a serious digestive disease in young animals. Restraint when it comes to concentrated feed, generous amounts of hay, well-chosen herbs, and cleanliness in the barn are the best prerequisites for fewer losses of young animals.