An Experiment

So given that I lost a doe to a cracked leg (I think) and having three week old kits struggling a bit with that lost I thought that I'd start encouraging my 2 week old kits to get out of the box.

ERGO... during the day I'm giving extra hay and a piece of cardboard and removing the nestbox. At night I'll be returning the nest box. Hoping this will encourage them to be more interested in eating hay and pellets, and if something ever happened again to another doe, the kits will struggle less.

Thoughts?

At 2 weeks i start throwing some feed only like 4 or 5 pieces in the nest box with them also make sure there is fresh hay in there. They learn when im coming and will all run up to the front of the nest box so cute lol. By 3 weeks i dump them out of the nest box and there usually eating and drinking by then.

I do that already, but I find some kits simply don't want to leave the box...and this current litter is very snuggly in their box. They don't nibble anything, and just sleep, sleep and more sleep.

At 2 weeks I had problems keeping the kits in the nest box, they were out on the dirt floor with Queen Bitchy Bitch and Thumper, and would only stay in when I dug a deep hole in the hay and covered them up. They were quite happy eating the hay and some pellets by that time, and I added some rolled oats to add some fat.

Amako's litter would have stayed in the nest box forever. They were quite content in there and she was feeding them well. It wasn't until I was playing with them and showed them they could get in and out that they finally started hopping out at around 3weeks old. Twix's kits who were not getting fed as well kept wiggling their way out of the box before their eyes were open. By 10days I just took it out because they would not stay in it and they were in the house with a solid bottom cage.

When my kits are about two weeks old, I start sprinkling a bit of dutch clover (the white clover that naturally grows in our lawn) in the nest box. Not a lot, maybe around two leaves for each bunny. That is little enough not to cause any "green" problems, and it is much easier for them to start eating than pellets, which require that the drink water also. At 10 days, I also clean out the nest box removing the grass hay and using a better hay with some clover or alfalfa in it. It gets them used to eating on their own a bit sooner, and gets them more accustomed to greens. By the time they are three weeks old, I am putting more greens in the cage, some in the nest box, and by 4 weeks I can dump a good handful in (and I have large hands :roll: ) and they are jumping out of the box to get to it before mom eats it all. If I were to lose a doe, I think it would be much easier for them to survive, especially if they were already trained to greens.

I don't actually feed a lot of greens, I do not have the time, nor do I have that much greenery available especially in the winter, but I think they are better prepared if I were to loose a doe and they were forced to survive without milk. At 5 weeks they can easily make it on their own with this method. I do not usually wean them until 6 weeks, but I have had to wean some at 5 and they seem just fine. Mom is usually weaning them about this age anyway. I think, though it has not been necessary to test yet< that they could make it OK at 4 weeks.