Leveret Rescue??

[Farplace]

What to do if you find a baby hare and think it's orphaned.....

DON'T touch it unless there is an obvious injury. If you are worried, contact a wildlife rescue centre and ask for advice... but do not handle the baby.

Bear the following points in mind:

1. Leverets are born fully furred with their eyes open. They start to nibble greens within a week.
2. A leverets' main defence when threatened is to freeze, which is often mistaken by people as being calm. The animal is not calm - it is terrified.
3. The mother separates her litter for a better chance of some babies surviving.
4. There is no nest! Leverets will stay hidden in the grass or low-level shrubbery, where the mother leaves them.
5. The mother only comes to feed the young once or twice a day. Otherwise the leveret is left alone. Even if you are watching, you may not see the mother return. Do not assume the leveret is orphaned simply because you do not see the mother.
6. Leverets sometimes wander a bit. When the mother returns to the area, she calls them, and they come to nurse.
7. Never try to feed a leveret. They have very delicate digestive systems.
8. Hares are extremely high-stress animals. They can die from fear.
9. Hares have very strong hind legs, and if restrained, may kick out hard enough to break their own backs.

[Hedgehoggy]

Sound advice, Jan. Is this post in preparation for the imminent breeding season for Hares, or have you had an early ‘rescued’ one brought into you recently?

[Farplace]

Originally Posted by Hedgehoggy

Sound advice, Jan. Is this post in preparation for the imminent breeding season for Hares, or have you had an early ‘rescued’ one brought into you recently?

It is in anticipation of the flood of calls we get every springtime. Last year we had 4 leverets brought to us at different times. All were healthy on arrival. One still had a wet cord, so was no more than about an hour old. All of them died within a few weeks of taking them in.
Does anyone know if they will be rejected by mum if they have been handled by Joe Public and taken away from the form, and then returned?

[Hedgehoggy]

Oh how sad . I know the success rate of hand rearing leverets is very, very low indeed. Let’s hope your message reaches enough folk out there before the season commences.

Don’t know if you have this site bookmarked already, but IIRC the advice on this particular site helped a ‘passing through’ WAB member to successfully hand-rear some leverets a few years ago: rearing leverets

I don’t know the answer to your last question, but if rabbits are anything to go by, then the mother will likely kill them.

[RKB]

Originally Posted by Farplace

Does anyone know if they will be rejected by mum if they have been handled by Joe Public and taken away from the form, and then returned?

If they all die when taken in, and rehabilitation is likely to by tough even if they survive, then maybe putting them back in the form and crossing fingers is better than dragging it out for a few weeks. Suppose you wont know unless you try.

[Farplace]

That's fantastic advice, thank you.

[Farplace]

Originally Posted by RKB

If they all die when taken in, and rehabilitation is likely to by tough even if they survive, then maybe putting them back in the form and crossing fingers is better than dragging it out for a few weeks. Suppose you wont know unless you try.

I was thinking along the same lines, but often joe public wont / cant tell me where the leveret was found. It's so frustrating. I have successfully reared a couple of leverets, but it is far from easy, and most still die.
We have a similar problem with "do-godders" bringing "orphaned" fledgelings every springtime too.

[mbaldw]

Originally Posted by Farplace

Does anyone know if they will be rejected by mum if they have been handled by Joe Public and taken away from the form, and then returned?

In a thread on here during the middle of last year, Valley Forge suggested abandonment was possible if human scent was transferred to the leverets:

Help! Nest of leverets exposed...what should I do?

Cheers,
Marc.

[Deb London]

Thanks you for posting this advice Jan. It's this sort of wealth of experience passed on by people that do actually give a monkey's that makes this site such a great place.

[valleyforge]

This is a very useful post from you Farplace as you have very neatly covered most of the notable points, and the thread perhaps deserves to be made a 'sticky' within the mammals forum.

Originally Posted by Farplace

Does anyone know if they will be rejected by mum if they have been handled by Joe Public and taken away from the form, and then returned?

I believe it is fair to say that there is a high risk of abandonment when any neonate mammal has been handled, but I don't think we can or should take it as a cast-iron, set-in-stone rule.

Certainly, in the case of young lagamorphs, it seems that the risk increases inversely with the age of the kit/leveret ... that is to say that younger offspring are at far greater risk of being abandoned than older offspring, in which the mother has naturally already invested more time and effort ... but the risk may possibly increase again, the closer the young animal is to being weaned.

So there are real dialemmas involved in discerning whether or not it is better to attempt to reunite an 'orphan' with its mother, not least of which is accurately determining just how old the animal might be.

In current law (Animal Welfare Act 2006 in England & Wales, Animal Health & Welfare Act 2006 in Scotland) it is also not legal to abandon an animal that is incapable of fending for itself ... so to return a leveret to where it was found would require observation (from an adequate safe distance) for as long as required to ensure that the mother hare (doe) had resumed feeding it.

Because the doe only suckles for perhaps 1-5 minutes each evening, the likelihood of this observation being made with any certainty by 'Joe Public' over perhaps what could extend beyond a 12 hour period, is therefore pretty low ... so a busy rehabilitator brought such an orphan, would probably need to find ample time to do that themselves. For me at least, that would in most instances be a non-starter.

So I whole-heartedly applaud your efforts to educate the WAB membership and beyond, to really think whether or not any 'orphan' that they find is indeed that.

On the matter of high infant mortality in hand-reared leverets, my understanding is that this is normally attributed to their developing enteritis prior to, or just after weaning.

Lagamorphs are unusual among mammals in having very few micro-organisms in the stomach and gut whilst suckling. An antimicrobial fatty acid (milk oil) is normally produced in the infant's stomach as a result of an enzymatic reaction in the doe's milk, and gives some protection against enteritic infection.

It has been suggested (BSAVA Manual of Wildlife Casualties) that caecal (NB. not faecal) droppings (caecotrophs) from heathy adults should be collected and fed, to help colonize the intestinal tract of the youngster with healthy bacteria and protozoans. For very young leverets, it is suggested that caecotrophs be liquidized and fed mixed with the milk replacer.

EDIT: I'm adding this after reading through the advice in the link provided by Hedgehoggy .... my understanding is that Rabbits and Hares should NEVER be given antibiotics orally, as this effectively destroys all gut bacteria.