Growth of the hare

• Weight after the birth
  Depending on how many siblings a hare has, it weighs 80 to 150 gramms at its birth. Our hare weighed 140 gramms at an age of three days.
  
  
• Getting the hare used to the feedings
  Instinctively the hare searches for its mothers' tits laterally on the underside of the belly and it also does so with female rabbits. When it first gets fed with a syringe or feeding bottle, the hare has no clue of what is going on, so it won't drink. There you need a lot of patience. The best way to show the hare how to eat, is to stick the tip of the syringe or bottle into the corner of its mouth and to press out a little milk. Always take care that no milk flows into the hares' nose! After about two days, most of the hares are used to this way of feeding and you won't experience any more problems. You should then compare his amount of food and weight with our charts. Normally your hare should eat more and gain weight faster than our ill one did.
  
  
• Gaining weight
  During the first two days the hare will lose about 20 gramms of weight. Due to the transposition of his environment and food he won't eat all too well. We had the impression, that Bactrim increases the appetite of hares but we didn't cross check that theory. Maybe somebody has experiences with that? From the chart you can learn about the further growth of the hare. At the changeover from milk to grass the hare might experience a little diarrhoea which is quite normal but should be observed. When weighing 1000 gramms, the hare should need no more milk and be prepared for his freedom.
  

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