E = Emergency

The kits has since started nibbling on BlueBerry's food. Since I have removed the nest box, I am using a big crock for the alfafa hay. These rascals will take turns to conquer the entire crock by going into it and munching on the alfafa hay.

I woke up this morning to find Little Bold sitting alone at a corner cleaning his vent area quite excessively. The thought of Enteritis dawned on me immediately amidst of being sleepy still. I checked on her vent area and found that it was a little wet. So I wiped it dry and went to work with a heavy heart. Her fur texture wasn't showing that she was in top condition. She didn't look too good.

I was expecting a dead kit when I rush home after work. But to my surprise, she was still pretty active and I hope it was not anything near Enteritis. I hope it was just my paranoia and sleepiness. Or better, I hope she was sleepy and did not look too active to begin with. LOL.

I am still keeping my fingers crossed. This is the exact situation that I dread breeding my rabbits. It is nerve wreaking needing to worry about the kits. That is why I usually keep my fingers crossed all the way till 8 weeks but still, thing can go wrong even after 8 weeks.

Just allow me to share the meaning of Enteritis or better known as Weanling Enteritis. It usually happens to kits at 4 weeks or older (especially during the weaning phase). What really happens is that, during the switch between the doe's milk to solid, an imbalance of the stomach flora happens because the delicate stomach of a kit cannot yet digest the solids fully and thus causes more build up of bad bacterias. With too much bad bacterias in the stomach, toxins soon start to increase and if the good bacterias are not able to reverse the situation, the kit will suffer a painful death.

I usually keep a tube of Probiotics like Bene-bac in case I am caught in such a situation. I will need to see how Little Bold progress from here. If she becomes lethargic, I may need to give her a little probiotics to help her out.

On the other hand, I have given Noobie her nest box to practice and she has indeed found a good use for it: