Help - newborn babies in the extreme heat.

[eldy]

This is our first set of kindling and three of our does kindled last night/morning and we are in the middle of an extreme heat wave for wisconsin. We are running close to 100 degrees ambient air. We already have lost a few of the kits thru the day which I assume is due to heat. Is there any thing I can do to keep the remaining kits from frying in the heat?

Can we open the nest up for a fan to blow on them?

 

[blessedfarmgirl]

I don't have rabbits, but I feel for you. We had two goats kid last week and though we haven't lost any, the babies are pretty heat stressed in the afternoons. I hope you are able to save your kits, and your weather cools down soon.

 

[SageHill]

I don't have rabbits, but how about putting bottles of ice on top of their cages?? Wet towels until you get ice will give you evaporative cooling. Just don't let the ice melt into the cages.
Good luck and please keep us posted.

 

[Baymule]

Use a hardware wire bottom nest box for air circulation. Transfer nest and babies. Open top also. Ok to have a fan, blowing in their direction but not directly on them.

Freeze blocks of ice on plastic bowls. Pop them out refill, refreeze, give blocks to the does.

Let us know how they do.

 

[Margali]

Get some cheap ceramic floor tiles from hardware store. Put them in freezer overnight then into the cages. Make sure rabbits have room to get off the tile if they get too cold.

 

[eldy]

Thank you everyone for the advise. I am more worried about the kits as I am already making sure the grown up rabbits are being cooled with the ideas already presented. I just wasn't sure how or what I can do to cool the kits down seen as they were born this morning. And with the high heat I didn't want to do much to shock the little guys.

 

[The-White-Elephant]

If you have trees, you can place them under its shade, it’s not the best solution, but it does work.

 

[eldy]

Well I figured I would give everyone and update we only lost 6 out of 19 due to the heat.

Basically we just opened the nests up and made sure we had a lot of air movement above the nest thru out the day. And checked on the babies every 2 hours and cooled them each if they felt to hot.

We have lost a few more but the mommas are all first time mommas.

 

[Baymule]

Thanks for the update! I’m glad that you have saved most of them!