Expect Good Days, Bad Days and Everything In Between!

This week has been a tough one for our rabbit family. 

Both Rebecca and Alice were expected to Kindle this week. Provided they were in fact pregnant. So we waited and watched for signs of nesting. Since we had purchased them as a breeding pair with King Kuppa we weren't sure if they had become pregnant in the care of the other folks or not. But we crossed our fingers and watched.

Much like a human nearing the end of her pregnancy a rabbit will start nesting. To prepare for their coming kits they begin to build a nest by grabbing mouthfuls of hay and straw and placing them in the nest box.

When you see a "haystash" it is a pretty good indication that you're expecting kits within the week. 

Rebecca starting nesting first so we filled her box with a layer of shavings and made sure it was thick. Then we gave her more hay than usual because she was no longer eating it but hoarding it for a cushy nest for her kits.

Within a day Alice (as pictured above) started nesting as well. It was a pretty exciting time. We were happy to be expecting our first sets of kits on the new farm.

Rebecca had 8 beautiful kits on Monday morning but we never realized they were right on the bottom of the nest box and on bare wood. The temperature dropped overnight Monday and brought some snow with it. When we checked the kits in the morning they were all cold. We brought them into the house and tried both the heatpad and waterless water bath method to try to revive them but it was to no avail. As my daughter was about to try the chest method as a last attempt to bring their temps up and get them started moving again, I remembered to check their toenails for pooled blood. Sure enough, one by one, they all had some red toenails. It absolutely broke my heart that Rebecca lost all of her kits.

Not knowing how long it would be until Alice had hers we didn't want to wait with cleaning out Rebecca's nest in hopes of keeping any bacteria away and keeping her hutch as clean as we can. So we cleared out the nest and decided to rebreed her right away, to ward off mastitis. King Kuppa was okay with having to preform his duties again. 

We decided to prevent Alice's kits having the same fate we would build a portable nest box and move her and her nest into the house.

Our youngest daughter put her carpentry skills to work and helped daddy build the nest box while I was making sure everything was dealt with outside. On my final check before rushing them along I noticed a little blood on the ground under Alice's hutch but I wasn't convinced she had kindled yet. 

As soon as the next box was ready we rushed out to scoop up the nest and Alice and get her settled in the house... We were too late. She had 9 beautiful kits in her nest. We still moved the bunny family inside to keep a better eye on them.

So far momma and kits are all doing well and the kits are thriving in their new nest box. Squirming and wiggling all over the place. In a week or so, once they have started getting fur we will place them back into Alice's hutch so they can develop with mom for the first 8 weeks. Then we will transition them to a grow out hutch where we will determine if we are processing, selling or keeping for our breeding program.

I am not an expert at sexing rabbits just yet, I'm sure over time I will become more confident but as it stands from when I checked them on day one I believe we have 8 little bucks and 1 little doe. I don't want to disrupt them too much so I will check again later. But not right now. 

I hope you've enjoyed this post. Please leave a comment if you have and I will be sure to write more similar to this if you've enjoyed it. I will be doing a post on building a nest box, as well as the hutches, sometime in the near future. 

Have a great day everyone,

Happy Homesteading!

Sally