Alright, I am back..
Now I realize BlueGiants asked if this might be genetic. I can't actually answer that, but I can offer some advice on what has worked for me.
I originally had 2 litters..one was of 4, the other was of 8. It was actually more than that, but what ended up surviving longer than a few hours after birth was 12. Regardless, the original mother of 8 died, so we fostered them off to the mother of 4. That doe ended up getting Mastitis. So we had to resort to bottle feeding them. I used Randy's instructions and formula advice down to the letter,hydrating and Bene-Bac.. I still lost 2.. messy butt, then mucous. I managed to save 10.. I thought I was out of the woods, 4 days ago we awoke to one dead severely bloated baby. All of them got the messy butt again, with the green mucous. Again Randy came to the rescue and we pretty much followed the same protocol.
I still lost another baby this morning, same circumstances.
The rest had the messy butts and were beginning to bloat despite my best efforts. A late night chat with Peg helped a bunch, and she referred me to this website.
http://www.thenaturetrail.com/Holland-Lops-and-Diarrhea.htm
Randy will prolly tar and feather me for this, but honestly, the babies were behind the 8 ball, the prognosis looked grim. So my thinking was.. if they are going to most likely die anyway.. lets give this a try... a last ditch effort.
So I tried the ORT (Oral Rehydration Therapy) recipe on the page.. it is as follows..
1 cup clean water
2 teaspoons sugar
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
3/16 teaspoon salt (take some out of a 1/4 tsp. or use a rounded 1/8 tsp.)
The article also went on to say..
"This formula differed from ones I'd previously used by having baking soda in it. But because I had read that the bunny's system is probably more acid when it is sick like this, I thought it might be a good thing to include the soda. One article said that the system would be so acid that using probiotics might be useless since they would die in the high acid environment before they could colonize the colon again."
I am not a vet... but I do know a few things about domestic and farm animals, I am also a Forensic Toxicologist by trade, and honestly, thats just a basic law of chemistry, in a roundabout way. The theory of the baking soda is sound... I have seen it used in other applications in the field, which I won't divulge here..so I know what it can and cannot do. It made sense to me. So I began my first go at it last night. All drank eagerly. I also made a slurry of sorts out of Bananas, pellets and pedialyte. About half ate it willingly and eagerly, the others I managed to get some down them by syringe. After about 30 minutes after they finished eating and drinking, I Bene-Bac'ed them all. I hoped and prayed for the best.
By my 6 am feeding.. 5 of the 8 had dry butts, I rehydrated again using my homemade ORT recipe, and Bene-Bac-ed again. By this evening.. ALL have dry butts, and some are beginning to excrete normal-ish poops. I gave them some Timothy Hay, and a bit of Quaker Oats. Again they all ate eagerly.. ALL of them. I left to go to the Gym and Tan and beat my daughter profusely about the head and shoulders (joke people.. I didn't beat her, but I felt like slapping her upside the head). I came back about 3 hours later, my son Blake kept vigil over them. All are still dry butt-ed, and eager. Some are grooming themselves again.
I would also like to add, that I have them in a small cage.. some of you have seen the pics of it. I have a heating pad in the bottom with several layers of t-shirts on top of it. I keep it on med, and turn it off several times a day. I have a towel over the cage to keep it dark and not so drafty. I must stress that it is NOT ok to leave a heating pad on babies.. especially unattended. Especially fur less ones. But mine are between 3 and 4 weeks. I slept on the couch with them beside me in their cage all night. I set my cell phone alarm to wake me at 45 minute intervals. They were always supervised.. I firmly believe that the warm surface for them to lay their belly's on helped a tremendous lot. Many slept with their legs behind them.. flat bellied on the bottom of the cage. I know when my tummy is upset, heat helps.. so I thought it would do well for them as well.
The change in my 8 remaining babies is amazing.. like I said, I figured it wouldn't hurt to try one last thing. I don't know if this will work for everybody, but it worked for me, and as 8 pm tonight, they are all still dry butts and eating.
I followed this regimen on this website to the letter.. tomorrow I will begin day 2's therapy.
I would love to hear anyone else's opinions or input on this.
I for one am just elated the babies may have a chance still.
