Atypical behavior of females can be provoked by an incorrectly selected diet, carelessness of owners or poor treatment, sharp noises and strong unusual odors, the birth of dead or sick rabbits. This is why sometimes a mother rabbit eats her newborn rabbits. The optimal solution to prevent such situations is to create good living conditions for female rabbits during pregnancy and lactation.
Poor diet
One of the significant reasons why rabbits eat their babies is due to lack of nutrients.Owners do not always take into account that pregnant rabbits need to increase the nutritional value of their diet by 200-220 feed units. Moreover, in every 100 g of feed units, proteins (digestible protein) should be 15-18 g.
Therefore, in order to prevent the problem of eating babies, it is necessary to adjust the diet of pregnant animals. The nutrition of pregnant females is formed from feed enriched with mineral supplements and protein. Soybean meal and sunflower cake are high-protein mixtures.
The stage of pregnancy is taken into account when preparing the diet. In the first weeks, embryos form, the placenta and membranes are formed. These processes require a variety of nutrients. In the second half of the term, the placenta and embryos continue to grow, and the composition of the diet changes slightly. About a week before giving birth, reduce the amount of roughage and grass and increase the amount of concentrates (oats, legumes, mixed feed).
Lack of milk
Most often, poor nutrition provokes a lack of milk. With weak lactation, a female rabbit is practically unable to fully feed more than 6-8 babies. Therefore, a situation arises when the rabbit ate several newborns.
It is recommended to use specialized food to adjust the diet of lactating females. Mixtures with a high protein content (soybean, sunflower meal, oats) are suitable. In the summer, animal food is enriched with plant additives (clover, oat mixtures, meadow herbs). In winter, you can diversify the food with boiled potatoes, carrots, beets, and high-quality silage. You also need to remember that a dairy female needs a significant amount of fluid to produce milk.
Therefore, it is imperative to ensure free access to drinking bowls and a constant availability of clean drinking water.
Stillborn rabbits
Cases of the birth of still or sick babies are not uncommon in rabbit farming. In such situations, the female may eat non-living newborns. These actions are explained by the manifestation of instinct: in the wild, corpse odors serve as bait for predators. To get rid of the corpses, the rabbit eats them.
Poor nutrition, stress, and infections contribute to the appearance of sick offspring. To ensure adequate nutrition and development of healthy rabbits, the female kills newborns with physical disabilities.
Stress
One of the reasons for the inappropriate behavior of a female rabbit may be the sudden onset of the sexual cycle. At the same time, the female stops paying attention to the newborn cubs. In this state, the animal can rush around the cage, tear up fluff and hay, refuse to feed the rabbits - does not allow them to approach the udder. Anxious states of an individual can be caused by other reasons:
- moving to other cells or rooms;
- sharp sounds in the room;
- owner's rough treatment of rabbits;
- unpleasant strong odors (other pets, exhaust fumes, gasoline, kerosene, paint, alcohol).
Veterinarians advise washing your hands with laundry soap before interacting with animals. To reduce the smell of soap, you can wipe dry hands with fluff taken from the nest. And only then do they take the cubs in their arms. In an open cage, if there is no queen cell, the female rabbit’s state of stress is provoked by the close presence of a male and his noticeable smell. In such situations, females sometimes gnaw the rabbits to the point of meat.
How to prevent eating?
Rabbits are herbivores, and the manifestation of cannibalism is a phenomenon unusual for their nature. The reasons why females eat their young can be different. To prevent cannibalism, it is necessary to study each case, because different decisions are made:
- a sudden change in food can provoke a lack of certain substances in the female’s body. Therefore, it is not recommended to radically change the diet of female rabbits before giving birth or in the first days after giving birth;
- a female rabbit may be hostile towards other people's newborns. If the baby rabbits are transferred to another female, it is advisable to first rub their fur with bedding hay from the nurse’s cage, which has the smell of her urine;
- transfer to a new cage can cause severe stress in the female. It is advisable to transfer the female rabbit to a cage with a queen cell in advance, so that the animal has time to get used to the new conditions before giving birth;
- Rabbits have a nervous disposition. It is important to protect pregnant females and rabbits with newborns from noise and strong odors. In the first week after birth, they do not even change the bedding in the queen cell, so as not to frighten the animals with fresh, unfamiliar smells.
Visitors with unfamiliar odors become a great stress for females. Therefore, it will be better if feeding and caring for animals is entrusted to certain people. But even in this case, it is not advisable to pick up newborn rabbits.
Keeping pregnant and lactating females requires increased attention. A diligent owner is interested in obtaining healthy and numerous offspring. Therefore, he must not only monitor the nutrition and health of the females, but also provide the animals with a comfortable and peaceful existence.
