Mother deserted her kits

[stroller 341]

Probably due to a dog pulling a dead rabbit through the wire of her hutch my little sandy bitch has allowed her young to get cold we have lost two and have four inside warming up and are getting ready to hand rear them, fortunately they are between 3 and 4 weeks old so should take a bit of meat.

 

There are a couple of good posts on here that should help and the missus God love her has volunteered to do the rearing and she isnt even that keen on the ferrets.

 

Lessons to be learned for sure

[Mick C. 229]

Feel it for you mate.

 

Should take a bit of warm liver now.

 

Wont the gill have nothing to do with them at all?

[stroller 341]

Mick she is very agitated and is just running over them and knocking them out of the nest. She seems to be ignoring them in the run

[reddawn 2,173]

should make it at that age mate, i had same sort a thing happen a couple a times, an generally if they 3 weeks or older its a doddle to hand rear, hope all goes well

[Jamie m 668]

Sounds like there could be something up with the Jill ,??? ,

[TOMO 26,115]

Mick she is very agitated and is just running over them and knocking them out of the nest. She seems to be ignoring them in the run

 

stroller,,, vin on here had a similar thing a few week back,, the jill died,,, check his posts out.... do you know anyone local to ya with a nursing jill,,,maybee you could put a few surogate

[Mick C. 229]

Had a similar thing happen but it was in the hot weather

 

Kits were strewn all over the cage.

 

The jill was very agitated but also was deteriating physically.

 

Bathed her in cool water and got her on lactol.I also put a bottle filled with chilled water into the bedding compartment to cool things down.

 

Eight kits on a small jill can take a lot of fluid.

 

Think that and the very hot weather was a bit to much.

 

Thank goodness i was around and able to act straight away.

 

Hope things go ok

[Kay 3,709]

I lost a jill years ago , she reared to 4 weeks old & then I found her out of the nest box , just generally moping about, so i popped her in a small external run, she walked round the edges of the run in a daze , i took her to the vets who diagnosed milk fever, i cant remember what he gave her , but sadly she didnt make it

 

he said its when they give everything to the litter & just have nothing left for themselves

 

edited to add i checked & she was given a calcium injection

Edited June 13, 2012 by Kay

[Jamie m 668]

Had a Jill dehydrate her self as Kay says I siyringed rehydration fluid then water in her gave her special recovery food from the vet , the rehydration stuff picked her up less than a day , since then I put a large bowl of water in with Jill as soon as she gives birth and for the first month ,

[stroller 341]

The jill is spot on she is her usual hyper self, im fairly convinced it was the dog incident. Originally she had the kits in the middle tier of three large hutches and i thought i had blocked the pipe off. but she then moved them down into the lower tier with the hob when they were a few days old so i left them in there and removed the hob. But obviously they were all at dog height and a friends cocker pulled a rabbit through the mesh and hey presto disaster!!

 

The kits seem to be doing fine they fed well this morning from the bottle and they will be put on a saucer later to see if they will lap and take solids

[johnrthrfrd 223]

That's bad crack Keith same happened to me a few years back at about the same age had 7 to look after managed to get 5 reared I used to mince rabbit and chicken up then squash it up till it was like a paste they would lick it but they soon got the idea also used to give them that substitute milk you can get at the pet shop.

Good luck mate.

[coneykenny 98]

a bit of lamb lac is a great filler for young kits and a welcome drink for the jills.watch them grow!!!

[stroller 341]

Cheers folk i think we might lose the one that was cold in the run but the other three are flying eating mashed chicken and lactose free puppy milk

[lurcherlad_2010 35]

Same happened to me with my Jill do not no what the reason was

[skycat 6,173]

The reason is usually because the jill has been upset by a dog or other animal, but sometimes even heavy thunderstorms can send them a bit crazy. The one and only time we ever lost kits was when there were two days of mega thunderstorms when the kits were only a few days old. All that electricity in the air has a bad effect on a lot of animals.

 

Wandering cats on hutch/court roofs can also be a problem.