Swelling in Baby Rabbit's
Neck Wound

Newborn baby rabbit (5 days old) was drinking mum's milk and the mum didn't like it so she kicked the baby and it went up in the air (30 cm) and dropped.

When we checked it, it was bleeding from its lower neck. We picked him up gently and held him for 20 minutes. He seemed fine, no weight loss, no crying. The wound stopped bleeding and we cleaned it out. At that time we noticed swelling in one side of the neck and it was big and round.

We put the kit back into its nest with the other two kits it seemed fine. It moved around fine and slept and snuggled with the others. We checked on him a couple more times and everything is fine. We don't have enough money to go to the vet and the swollen bump has not gone away. Will he be fine?

***** Karen Sez *****

Wow, this is a new one:

"Rabbit mum drop-kicks kit because it bit her teat..."

I'm sorry for getting a chuckle out of an imaginary news headline... :-)
I can certainly imagine a doe being unhappy with kits latching on roughly (and seen teats that looked chewed on), but have not heard of does literally kicking their babies away from them, perhaps because they usually nurse their litters when we're not around. I'm assuming you actually witnessed the event(s).

I'm glad you were there to repair the damage. From all you say, the kit may simply have a good-sized hematoma under the skin - a pocket filled with blood that will slowly reabsorb into the kit's body. Kits' bodies are amazingly resilient - we had a kit with a huge laceration on the tummy. We re-approximated the wound edges, and it healed without a hitch.

At least, I hope this is all it is. Hematomas might take a couple weeks or perhaps more to completely resorb.

Best of luck with the little guy, and enjoy your rabbits. :-)

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