Newborn Rabbit with diarrhea

Question
Hi,
We just found a newborn rabbit, maybe a week old. He just opened his eyes today.
He's drinking kitten milk that i got from petsmart, but i just noticed he's having diarrhea, is this a bad thing? and what should i do since he is so little?

Answer
Dear Megan,

Yes, this could be life-threatening very quickly.  Please read this:

http://www.bio.miami.edu/hare/squirts.pdf

and get the baby to an experienced rabbit vet ASAP:

http://www.rabbit.org/vets

In my experience, such diarrhea very often turns out to be overgrowth of E. coli from human handling.  Orally administered ciprofloxacin is critical to getting these deadly bacteria under control.  Most vets don't yet know about this, as I have not yet published it, but I hope they will believe enough to give the baby a chance.

Once I started the ciprofloxacin treatments (after having several diarrhea samples cultured and identified as overgrowth of E. coli), I never lost another baby rabbit with diarrhea.

Dana