If you have an expecting rabbit doe or have seen little rabbits running around your fields, you might be wondering ‘What do baby rabbits eat?‘ and ‘Do rabbits nurse their young?‘
Yes, mother rabbits nurse their young. Mother rabbits have mammary glands in each of their eight teats. Rabbits nurse their young from the night after birth to weaning at the age of three or four weeks. Rabbits are mammals in the lagomorph order. Like all mammals, Rabbits produce milk and nurse their young.
Now that you know that mother rabbits nurse their babies, let’s answer a few more of your rabbit nursing related questions!
The information about how often they nurse each day was very interesting to me.
How Do Rabbits Nurse Their Young?
To nurse her baby bunnies, the mother rabbit stands on her four legs, over top of her baby bunnies. The bunnies then have access to her teats and can “lock on” with their mouths and begin nursing. Realize that the mother rabbit’s legs are not long and the bunnies are in a nest of hay and fur, so the tiny little bunnies can lay down and nurse while mother rabbit stands.
I find it interesting that the mother rabbit does not lay down to nurse her young, like many other mammals!
Here is a great five minute video that shows a mother rabbit feeding her recently born kits.
I like this video because it does a great job of showing how the mother rabbit stands over her kits to nurse them. Additionally, the video shows how tiny, pink, and beautiful the newborn bunnies are shortly after kindling.
What is Kindling?
When the mother rabbit gives birth to a litter of baby rabbits, bunnies, or kits, it is called kindling.
When Does the Baby Rabbit Begin to Nurse?
The bunnies may not nurse right away after kindling. Most often the first nursing happens in the night after the kindling.
How Often Do Rabbits Nurse Their Young and For How Long?
Mother rabbits nurse their young once or twice a day. Most often the nursing is once a day and occurs between midnight and morning day light. The babies nurse vigorously for only about 5 minutes.
For healthy kits, 5 minutes of nursing is long enough to fill their bellies and hold them until the next nursing, about 24 hours later. Most mammals nurse more often than once a day. The once-a-day nursing for rabbits is not typical among mammals.
Here is a great four minute video that shows a mother rabbit feeding her ten day old kits. Note that the kits are covered in fur at ten days. Notice how round and full the babies’ bellies are at the end of the video. Further, this appears to be a “house” rabbit, vice a rabbit that lives in a cage.
How To Tell if a Baby Rabbit is Nursing?
A warm baby rabbit with a round full belly is likely healthy and feeding well. The best way to tell if a baby rabbit is nursing is to check the baby in the morning when you wake up. If the baby is warm and its belly seems round, or full, then it is very likely getting its share of the mother’s milk.
Additionally, you may use a small kitchen scale to weigh the baby from morning to morning. If the baby is gaining about a quarter ounce per day, then it is gaining weight and growing nicely. The healthy, well-fed kit has pink skin (not blue-ish) and is not sluggish. If the kit is crying often, then it may not be getting fed.
Contrary to popular belief, you may handle the baby rabbits without fear that their mother will then hurt them. Rabbits, especially domestic rabbits, are not scared of or aggravated by the smell of humans.
How Much Milk Does the Mother Rabbit Make?
The average mother rabbit provides milk, or lactates, for 28 days, making 12 to 15.4 pounds (5.5kg to 7kg) of milk during the month long lactation period. On average, she produces the most milk on days 18 through 20, after kindling. Note that hotter climates can reduce the mother rabbit’s milk production by about 33%.
For instance, some research found that in temperatures near 86 degrees Fahrenheit, the mother rabbit produced 33% less milk than in temperatures near 60 degrees Fahrenheit. This scientific research information was found at this site.
What Nutrients are Found in Rabbit Milk?
Rabbit milk, like the milk of most mammals, is rich in fat and all nutrients necessary for the develop of the kits. More specifically, rabbit milk is more concentrated in fat (12.9g/100g), protein (12.3g/100g) and energy (8.4MJ/kg) than both cow and pig (sow) milk.
This is part of why the baby rabbits grow so quickly, often weighing about six times their birth weight after 3 weeks of nursing. Here is a link to the scientific research.
Rabbit milk has been analyzed and found to have more of the water soluble vitamins in it than cows milk! Please note that the amounts of each item vary throughout the lactation period. The list of Vitamins and elements found in rabbit milk is listed below and referenced here.
- Biotin
- Folic Acid
- Nicotinic Acid
- Calcium
- Riboflavin
- Thiamine
- Vitamin B6
- VitaminB12
- Vitamin A
- Sodium
- Potassium
How Old are Bunnies When They Stop Nursing – At What Age are Rabbits Weaned?
Baby rabbits nurse for three to four weeks after being born. During the third and fourth weeks of life, the wild rabbit will begin to leave the nest during the day to explore and become familiar with its habitat. As the rabbit begins to explore it will eat some grass and begin to sample other foods in its habitat. The young rabbit will return to the nest in the late afternoon and nurse on its mother later that evening.
By exploring and eating some grass during the day, the young rabbit’s digestive system naturally begins to adjust to grass and greens. This is how the rabbit naturally weans itself from its mother’s milk. By the fifth week of life, the wild rabbit is weaned.
The domestic young rabbit, most often in a cage or house, weans itself in a similar process to the wild young rabbit. Instead of exploring within 25 yards of its nest, it explores its cage. The young domestic rabbit finds and eats grass, hay, pellets or whatever you have placed in the feeder.
By this process the domestic bunny’s digestive system begins to adjust to hay and pellets, between the late night feedings with its mother. By the fifth week of life, the domestic rabbit is weaned.
Final Thoughts
This Do Rabbits Nurse Their Young post is part of our larger post about What Can Rabbits Eat? Please click and give it a read! It is full of great information and I guarantee you will learn something valuable.
As we discussed throughout this article, rabbits are mammals, so they nurse their young. mother rabbits nurse their babies once or twice a day, at night, for the first three to four weeks of the baby rabbit’s life.
The young rabbits begin to wean themselves during the third and fourth weeks of life, as they explore their surroundings during the day and begin to eat what they find in their environment. This begins to transition their digestive system to hay and other greens.
In the afternoon, baby rabbits will return to the nest and nurse on their mother once each night, and by the fifth week of life the young rabbits are weaned from their mother’s milk!
Lastly, here is a funny picture about this topic. Laughter is the best medicine.
