Baby bunnies that just fade away

What are the ‘Faders’? I can hear you all ask, so now I’ll try to describe them from my own experience. As its name implies, a bunny that is a ‘Fader’ literally just fades away until it has no energy left and dies. We, along with many other breeders, have tried numerous methods in an attempt to save these little ones with only a small percentage, if any, making it past three weeks. You first notice a ‘Fader’ when the babies leave the nest around 2 weeks of age.

This is the stage where babies begin to nibble on everything they see their mother chew. The ‘Fader’ appears to crouch as close to mother or other siblings as possible with ears flat to head and fur fluffed up to conserve as much energy as possible. You won’t see them trying to nibble on anything, running around the cage full of energy, or eating with their siblings when mom feeds them. Also, their eyes seem to open later than normal around day 11) and you usually have to bathe them in warm water to release them, not just once, but several days in a row.

We have tested numerous strategies ourselves and documented the treatments used. When the next fader appears, we used the parts of the previous treatments that seemed to have had a positive effect on the ‘Faders’ and livened them up a bit. We have been very lucky to have only had six ‘Faders’ since we started keeping rabbits almost five years ago. We found that the most important things to ensure a positive result for the ‘Fader’ were warmth and sunlight, keeping them with their family rather than isolating them as this only made them die faster, and the addition of extra vitamins. in the form of Penta-vite® added to its formula. We also noticed that these little ones couldn’t suck like their siblings, but could lick up the warm formula when it was placed on their tongues. So when Ellie gave us two of these little ones, we were determined to give them our best care in an effort to save them.

As soon as they hatched from the nest and were seen to be ‘Faders’ we immediately began supplementing them with the modified formula, put heating pads under their bedding (we placed heated wheat bags under our cooler frames so they didn’t become a tasty snack for mom and the other siblings) and made sure they got a sunbath every day for a couple of hours (vitamin D) by putting them inside in front of the window so they were exposed to direct sunlight, but it got kept warm and free from drafts. We weighed them before and after feeding using very precise scales and found that they were consuming 4g of feed per feeding at the beginning and ended up consuming 12-15g when weaned four weeks later. Little baby Siamese Smoke, who is a male, weighed 82g to his mother, while her sister, a REW, weighed 94g. Her brother (a sooty fawn) who was a normal healthy baby weighed 146g, so we used that as a reference point. It has taken almost two weeks of three feedings a day and constant monitoring to see a positive change.

When they were four weeks old, these two little ones began to behave normally and are improving. The REW now weighs 142g and the little Siamese Smoke now weighs 129g. His sooty fawn brother weighs 190 grams. When they see me coming they get very excited as if to say: ‘Mom is coming with two legs, yeah’. Their mom Ellie still cleans and cares for them so we don’t have to worry about that side of things and now their little ears are starting to cut off. Mind you, his sooty fawn brother is also cropping his ears.

So it seems that we have found a winning treatment to change these little ones. How happy are we? As you can imagine, we feel great and it’s wonderful to sit there watching the little ones run. We will keep the REW Doe to see how it develops and we will also carry out further studies in the future (like will it produce babies or normal faders, will its health be affected in the future, etc.) and will also keep an eye on the little smoke siamese to see how it develops. We hope this information helps those of you who are keeping rabbits.