Orphaned Newborn Kit help >_<

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Charliespooks

Charliespooks

Well-known member
Joined
Jul 10, 2011
Messages
45
Location
Virginia, USA
I just received a call about an hour ago from my sister. She came home to an extremely bloody cage. She said she found the kit under her female chin who was dead (RIP shard:( ). We knew for a while that her chin was expecting a litter but we weren't expecting this.

She asked if she could come over for help and of course i said yes. I'm currently holding the baby in some fleece with my hands around to keep it warm while I made her go out and get stuff for a formula recipe i found on the "Caring for your Kits" thread.

Beyond that I have no clue what I'm doing. Should I put the baby with my female chin between feedings so it stays warm and has somewhat other mother care? Help please :(
 
Will your female accept the kit without killing it?

Do you have a female that is currently nursing a small litter that might be able to take this one?

(I don't know if you're a breeder or what the story is)

Most important keep that baby warm and it's tummy feed.

One thing I'm not sure on is if you need to stimulate them to go to the restroom or not.
 
Just finished feeding him an hour ago (not sure yet on the sex but ill go with "him" for now). We had a syringe with no markings so I can't really estimate how much he ate, I really hope it was enough. He seemed a bit confused at first but I followed the directions on letting a small drop form on the tip and putting it up to the lower lip. After about 10 or 20 minutes, we got him accustomed to syringe feeding a bit, hopefully he eats more as he gets used to it.

As for Demi (my only female chin who's spayed) doesn't seem like the type to be aggressive (but I know chins can be unpredictable) but I might try and gradually introduce the baby then keep a very watchful eye on them between feedings if thats not a bad idea.
I'm not a breeder and ive only owned chins for half of a year now so I have no experience with kits, let alone taking care of an orphaned one. My sister only has 2 other chins but theyre male so I figured I'd be in a better position to take care of him. She also is quite new to chins too but I've had more experience with animals in the past so I guess she thinks I'm more qualified. I am also lucky to work at home so I can be there for him as much as he needs me.

As for the stimulating elimination, I followed the guide on the same thread I got the formula off of. I had no cotton balls so I used those small circular cotton pads instead. I've done it once so far (10 minutes after feeding) and no poop yet but it said that happens sometimes. How often should I be stimulating waste elimination?

When stores open in a few hours, I'll get my sister to run out and grab more supplies like a marked syringe and a digital scale to weigh him. Let me know if theres anything else I should consider purchasing.

Also where should I keep him when I can't hold him? I have him in a cardboard box filled with fleece right now so I can type but I know I can't do that all the time.
 
When we hand raised a kit we kept him in a small pet carrier, because we have cats and worried about them getting to him. We also placed a hot water bottle covered in fleece in there so the baby could keep warm. As he got older (about a month old) we moved him to a small baby proof cage. As for stimulation, we did this after every feeding. Also, I found it really easy to use a glass eye dropper for feeding.
 
A tall box with fleece is good for now. Provide some sort of warmth. I've put a heating pad on one end of a box and put layers over it. So the kit can choose to move away if its too warm to an area that has a few layers over the top of the pad which is cooler.
Note: the newer heating pads shut off after a while. My old one doesn't. A nice warm water bottle was a great idea as well. You'll have to replenish the warmth after a while. Warmth is very important!

The kit will poo more in the future. And its very tiny. They eat very little to start with and when he gets older he will grab ahold of that syringe and try to swollow it whole. LOL. Your going to quickly find out what it's like to have a baby always feeding it after several hours day and night.
About a week into his age you can offer some soft hay. They will start to nibble. I use orchard grass as its a softer cut. But sometimes there are softer cuts to timothy as well.

I noticed when my kit was somewhere around 4-6 weeks old he would not take food in the night anymore. It did worry me a lot. So I hung a bottle of formula on the cage at night. He continued this pattern and I just left the bottle in and didn't get up anymore.

In the morning I quickly took the bottle off and washed it and put fresh forumula in it. ( still warming the formula) I opened the cage and put it near him so he could taste. Didn't like the bottle end. So I took him out and feed him during the day with the syringe. And left the bottle in at night. He finally took to the bottle. And his mom drank from it too. Never hurt her.

I believe at that point he was eating more hay and feed. I also saw him drinking from the water bottle too. By water bottle I mean the Ryerson water bottle that has a glass stem. No ball bearing. I also used another Ryerson bottle stem stopper on the glass human baby food jar for his formula. It's easy to get liquid out of that set up.
 
I would look into getting a kit safe cage pretty quick. I've walked in on a couple day old kits hanging from the top of the cage. They are incredibly active.

I personally would not start out with hanging a bottle for a kit. My kits eat well whether it's day or night. I wouldn't hang a bottle for at least a week or 2. I had a very bad experience with it and I won't risk it again. After a couple weeks they are more able to regulate how much they take in and i think they can handle it better.

Get a syringe from your vet. An insulin syringe without a needle has worked the best for me. It's just a 1 cc syringe. I've never been able to find one at a normal store, always had to go through the vets office. I also have much better luck with fresh goats milk from the grocery store than with canned or powdered. It's a lot less hassle, much fresher, and the kits go nuts over it.
 
tunes said:
I also have much better luck with fresh goats milk from the grocery store than with canned or powdered. It's a lot less hassle, much fresher, and the kits go nuts over it.
Click to expand...

I agree with this. One of the kits I had to handraise wouldn't take the canned goats milk. He only took the fresh milk. A good idea is when you make your formula freeze the extra in ice cube trays. When you feed the next time just warm it up. I only used one cube untill my babies got a little bigger. I have also found that a glass eyedropper with a curved end works best for me. I used the heating pad on 1 end of the cage for my babies and they usualy slept on it. I hope that your babie dose well!
 
Was the female alone in the cage? I guess I'm not clear on what happened to the mother. If the mother was in with the other girl and she killed her, I would not put the kit with her, IF the other female will care for the kit that is the best, that leaves you only in charge of the actual feeding. But not all females will, and some will kill kits that aren't theirs. I've heard of females killing other females to take their kits, even though they don't have milk, etc. too.

If the kit doesn't go with the other female, then make sure you have a safe snuggle buddy for it.

Kit won't eat a lot, they eat often though. Think of how small their stomachs are.
 
My sister only has 2 other chins but theyre male so I figured I'd be in a better position to take care of him
Question for the experts. If his female won't foster the kit should he think about getting the daddy chin to snuggle with the kit in his house?
 
The mother was alone in the cage, from what my sister told me it sounded like she bled from giving birth. She had already separated the mother chin from her mate a couple weeks prior to last night to prevent breedback.

Everything has been going fine so far, just a little tired from getting up every two hours. The next time we fed him, he took to the syringe a lot quicker. Luckily he doesn't squirm much either while he's feeding so that he gets what he needs rather than worrying about getting away.
I made the box into a more permanent home, carefully lining the bottom and sides with fleece. Luckily we also brought out our heating pad a month back due to the cold weather so I folded it up, wrapped that in its own layer of fleece and put it down on one half of the box. He seems to have taken to it quickly and spends alot of his time there.

Everytime I've done a feeding and rubbed his belly (got some poop last night yay! heh) I've held him up to the cage for Demi to sniff at him, trying to gauge her reaction. Is there a certain way I should introduce my chin to the baby or should the snuggling instinct be instant? I just don't want any accidents ><
If she won't do it, we'll see what we can do with the father but it's hard since he's back at my sister's house and she wants me to keep the baby here.
Also, does anyone have the pattern for a snuggle buddy? I have fleece and a sewing machine, just don't know how to make them.
 
I was also able to get my hands on a kitchen scale earlier today and tried to measure the baby. Unfortunately its not a very expensive scale and measures up to 7lbs(non-digital ><) so I can't see gram-to-gram gain or loss, just approximate weight :\ Trying to get a better one asap.

edit: forgot to post the weight lol From what it looks like, the baby is about 50 grams which from my research seems normal :)
 
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OH he looks to be in great shape! Well done.
You'll like using a digital scale as it will give you a peace of mind being able to write down gram weight gain.

You'll look like this after a week or so of caring for him. :wacko:
And of course make sure you re-read my post about hanging a bottle. I did NOT hang the bottle until many weeks after the kit was born. As the little stinker was not eating in the night.

I'll let someone else address foster issues. Some like kits and others do not.
 
You are just going to have to be seriously vigilant if you intro them. Some will love kits and others are very aggressive. One thing you could try that I have heard from many ranchers is to take wet/peed on shavings from the potential foster mother and rub the baby with them before you put it in there. this puts her smell on the baby and can help the intro process. Gross, but effective. The female may not like it if the baby tries to nurse from her so just pay attention to them.

Also, is there a cage that's baby safe they can both go into? You don't want any spacing any bigger than 1/2" x 1/2" or 1" x 1/2". They will escape anything bigger.
 
the baby weighs 7 pounds?!?!?!??!?!?!??!?
Click to expand...

Nowhere did the post say the baby weighs 7 pounds. It said the SCALE went up to 7 pounds.

I always rub the foster kits in the shavings of the mom I want to put them with, but that is still no guarantee that it will work. I would be leery of putting in a kit with a nonproven mom because you have no baseline of how she treats her own kits. If you do decide to try, as mentioned above, I would be hyper vigilant at all times.
 
Heh if he was 7 pounds, I'd have a cat-sized chin when he grows up (wouldn't that be awesome! :p)

The used shavings ideas are good, I'll try it out. When I do introduce them, I will have myself at the ready at ALL times. I'll probably start out having him in the for very brief amounts of time and gradually work to having him in there between all feedings. But, we'll see how it goes. Either way he seems happy, he zooms around his cardboard box now and popcorns now and then hehe

I'm working on baby-proofing our spare cage atm with hardware cloth that we picked up the other day from home-depot. Also, if he ends up staying with Demi how long do I wait to put ledges/shelves back in the cage? I'm scared she'd jump from one and squish him ><
 
When I had Bratty, Oli, and Pepper (we didn't have Nust yet) Bratty tried to bite the babys through the bars. We couldn't introduce them. After Braty showed aggression we decided it wasan't worth it.
 
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