Trying to save a baby bunny...
@countrylady28 (153)
United States
April 16, 2007 8:43am CST
Last week my hubby found a baby bunny outside. My dog had destroyed it's nest and got all of the babies and the mother. We took bunny in and took care of it for 3 days until we could get it to a wildlife specialist.
I ran into lots of problems when I was trying to find out information on taking care of it. All of the websites tell you to get the animal to a specialist, but the problem was we had put calls in to two of them and hadn't heard back from them. So - we didn't know what to do. After having spoken with a specialist, we found out the following. I thought I would pass this on in case any of you find yourselves in a similar situation:
1. The bunny's mother only visits them in the middle of the night or early in the morning to nurse for a few minutes. Chances are, you won't see the mom around so you'll want to put a couple of sticks in a X shape on the nest so you can check the next morning to see if they have moved. If not, the mom is probably dead or has abandoned the nest.
2. If you are POSITIVE that the mother is dead, do the following.
3. Put the bunny in a box lined with paper towels and a washcloth or small towel. Be sure the box has a lid and poke breathing holes (a shoe box might not work since the bunny can jump.
4. Make sure the bunny is warm (we put ours right down the hall from the woodstove)
5. Feed the bunny kitten milk replacer or pedialight warmed to room temperature every 4 hours or so with a medicine dropper. Feed the bunny as much as it will take without becoming "distressed". (we got 2 different opinions on this. one specialist told us to feed it once either late at night or early in the morning, and the other said every 4 hours - not sure which is right)
6. Don't bother bunny. They are used to being left alone. Don't give it too much attention or you'll cause distress.
After feeding it cows milk mixed with Karo Syrup (big no-no) we did make contact with a specialist who told us about the pedialite. After giving the pedialite, the bunny went to the bathroom and it hadn't until that point (for 2 days) so that was rewarding to see!
We safely took the bunny to a rehab specialist who was suprised that it was still alive. This bunny was very young - they eyes were still closed!!!
If any mylotters have advice or experience rehabbing small mammals maybe you could clear up the feeding issue or correct me if anything else I posted is incorrect. I was clueless and I had a terrible time figuring out what to do with bunny until we got it to someone who knew what they were doing.
Mission accomplished!!!
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