We had 51 baby rabbits born a couple weeks ago. As usual, we lost a few. Three were dead by the time we found them. Two others died within a couple days of being born. A sixth one looked like it might not survive either…
It was a lot smaller than its siblings, but Stephen, the rabbit man, has learned tricks to give runts a boost. This kitten’s mother is rather aggressive, so Stephen took to giving the littlest bunny extra feedings from a tamer doe with more milk. One evening, however, when he came to check on it, he found it outside the kindling box, nearly dead from hypothermia. Stephen warmed it up under a heat lamp, but it didn’t have the strength to nurse. Stephen brought it inside and fed it cow’s cream from an eyedropper. We’ve tried this trick before with a 0% success rate, but the aspiring vet didn’t want to give up on the tiny creature. Amazingly, the kitten grew stronger and was soon able to drink from the does. Since its own mother didn’t seem to have enough milk for it, Stephen put it into a higher producing doe’s nest. (Rabbits don’t seem to be able to count.) That went well and the little bunny was just looking like it would probably survive when tragedy struck.
After checking on it early in the morning, Stephen was just putting it back into the nesting box when the adoptive mother reacted to this “intruder” and attacked. The side of the little kitten’s face was badly torn, but Stephen, from following vets around a few times, had seen a few veterinarian tricks including the use of crazy glue (probably actually a similar product). Yes, you read that correctly! After disinfecting the wounds, Stephen crazy glued the cuts closed. Of course this new turn of events greatly reduced the kitten’s chance of survival. But Stephen faithfully disinfected the wounds and put on antibiotic cream. For the tiny kitten, eating became very difficult. Its whiskers on one side were caught in the crazy glue so it couldn’t find the teats. And of course it was in pain, so it wasn’t inclined to try hard. But Stephen persisted in trying to get it to drink as often as possible – even milking one of his does once! We all expected infection to set in, but it never did. We also thought that with the injury being so close to its eye, the eye would be damaged and rendered non-functional. But a couple days later, it opened it’s eyes, obviously unharmed!
Now it is doing amazingly well. It still need a little additional care, but it certainly looks on the road to recovery. With the amount of fur rabbits have, the scars may not even be visible eventually. We’re just waiting for the hair to grow out so the crazy glue can come off. (That’s crazy glue, not scarring that you see in the picture.)
