First time doe woes.

This is a first for me , silly first time doe having her kits on the wire. Found 10 in the cage , one on the ground & not sure if the dogs got any , its quite possible.
My kids found them within roughly an hour after birth , all were alive. Doe didn't pull any fur at the time and still hasn't done so. They appear healthy and are all pretty equal in size & she is feeding them. Disaster averted , at least for now.

I put some dryer lint in with them since she didn't pull fur , tho I do have some fur I can put in if need be. Its been rather warm , upper 70's to mid 80's during the day , upper 60's at night.

Tho she's feeding them , I'm not convinced she can handle all 11. Had a second doe that was due that seems to have missed so no real options to foster other than a doe with a litter of 8 about 10 days old, probably not an option.
With them all being roughly equal in size and appearing healthy , culling will be difficult if it comes to that. For now I'll just let them be and make those tough decisions if / when there is a sign of weakness in them.

Congrats on the litter!

If some of the kits appear to start falling behind, you might want to consider separating the kits into two groups and feeding them separately for a bit. Good luck!

It is supposed to get in the 40's so I would put more fur or bring them in. Splitting the litter and feeding half in the am and half in the pm works well.

OneAcreFarm":38qmjh1a said:

It is supposed to get in the 40's so I would put more fur or bring them in. Splitting the litter and feeding half in the am and half in the pm works well.

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I brought them inside , because of the wind & rain which had somehow soaked the other litter's nest box which is in a shed covered on three sides. After replacing the bedding I put them on the kitchen table , about an hour later my dogs bring me a day old kit that somehow crawled out of the box and fell to the floor. It was kinda cold so I warmed him in a towel out of the dryer. No telling how long the dogs had been torturing it .... but he seems to have recovered. Poor thing has had a rough first two days. <br /><br /> __________ Tue Apr 15, 2014 10:04 am __________ <br /><br /> So I bring them in last night , my wife wakes up before I do and finds one of the older litter on the living room floor , she puts it in the nest box - the wrong box.
After I wake up I find another of the older litter crawling around on the floor and realize another is missing ... I tear the entire room apart looking for this rabbit , finally she tells me its in the other nest box after watching me freak out for a half hour.

The first timer finally pulled fur last night tho not much. All 11 are still alive. They are very resilient critters at that age. I can hardly believe one of them fell ~ 3 and a half feet from the table to the floor , got hauled around by the dog and lived to tell the tale being ~36 hours old.

I can't believe if your dog got it- she/he didn't eat it- lol! I think you need to put them in a box with higher sides- or put them in a box that sits in a box with higher sides.

squidpop":14hmf69f said:

I can't believe if your dog got it- she/he didn't eat it- lol! I think you need to put them in a box with higher sides- or put them in a box that sits in a box with higher sides.

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This dog doesn't want to hurt them , she just wants to play with them , or mother them. She's a Maltese , weighs about 4.5lbs. Baby bunnies are about the same size as her pups when born. I really wonder if that's why she doesn't harm them.

She found another one that somehow made its way out of the nest box , thru the baby saver wire and onto the ground yesterday. Had she not alerted me to it , the thing would not be alive now ....

This litter has had one strange occurrence after another yet they are all alive and growing well, they were a bit small to begin with being such a large litter , the doe seems to have enough milk for the lot of them and after her initial blunders seems to have figured this mothering thing out.

I believe it. One of the dogs I have now will bring a kit to me. It will be soaking wet and slick with drool but it will be unharmed. It's a pain in the butt at weighing time when I put them all in a box and turn my back to weigh one. Several of the dogs I've had in the past would also do this with "our" rabbits and took a personal interest in them as if they were small, mentally challenged members of the pack. I always found it odd as they have all been hunting hounds and a wild rabbit would turn them into foaming, bellowing, rabbit-killing monsters.

Ramjet":45lqfvi5 said:

squidpop":45lqfvi5 said:

I can't believe if your dog got it- she/he didn't eat it- lol! I think you need to put them in a box with higher sides- or put them in a box that sits in a box with higher sides.

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This dog doesn't want to hurt them , she just wants to play with them , or mother them. She's a Maltese , weighs about 4.5lbs. Baby bunnies are about the same size as her pups when born. I really wonder if that's why she doesn't harm them.

She found another one that somehow made its way out of the nest box , thru the baby saver wire and onto the ground yesterday. Had she not alerted me to it , the thing would not be alive now ....

This litter has had one strange occurrence after another yet they are all alive and growing well, they were a bit small to begin with being such a large litter , the doe seems to have enough milk for the lot of them and after her initial blunders seems to have figured this mothering thing out.

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If the doe is jumping out over the top of the nest box, and a kit hangs on, they can fall out of the 1x2 holes...ask me how I know this....

Our bernese mountain dog would bring us baby wild rabbits that the cats had found the nest and started killing. He accidentally killed some but several survived to be released again. My akita won't harm kits I tell her not to despite handing her culled kits to eat. She'll just lay there with her nose on the edge of a nestbox waiting for kits to come within licking distance.

OneAcreFarm":1mspi5jq said:

If the doe is jumping out over the top of the nest box, and a kit hangs on, they can fall out of the 1x2 holes...ask me how I know this....

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I think that's what happened here ....


Day 5 and everyone is still alive. Guess I should post pics ....

Ramjet":1i3c2uu4 said:

Day 5 and everyone is still alive. Guess I should post pics ....

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Are you new here?????

Marinea":149b6o33 said:

Ramjet":149b6o33 said:

Day 5 and everyone is still alive. Guess I should post pics ....

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Are you new here?????

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Um , depends upon what you call new.


I've been here since August of 2013.


Not sure as to the point of the question?!

Of course we would love to see pics of those little rascals!!!

Ramjet":3m63qjwu said:

Marinea":3m63qjwu said:

Ramjet":3m63qjwu said:

Day 5 and everyone is still alive. Guess I should post pics ....

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Are you new here?????

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Um , depends upon what you call new.


I've been here since August of 2013.


Not sure as to the point of the question?!

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That would be Marinea giving you a bit of the okeeye:.

In other words, of course you should post pictures!!!

MamaSheepdog":1uckv2v8 said:

That would be Marinea giving you a bit of the okeeye:.

In other words, of course you should post pictures!!!

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Call me dense ... :?


So I check on them this morning , two are missing , one is dead , so we're down to 8. Kinda glad natural selection ran its course and I didn't have to make any difficult decisions.

Another odd thing about this litter , mom is a lilac , pop is a chocolate .... 11 kits , 10 lilac , one chocolate. Wonder what the odds are of that.





Here's another litter born 10 days earlier , they are half Rex , 1/4 Altex 1/4 Californian. This bunch is just about ready to have the nest box removed , they spend more time crawling on mom than in the box.
This mix has some really nice growth rates and the one doe I kept from the last pairing is very large. Over 13lbs.

Ramjet":30i6c8pn said:

Call me dense ... :?

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DENSE!

:twisted: :twisted: :twisted:

:lol: Sorry... I couldn't resist. :roll:

Ahem!...

...Cute popples, Ramjet!

Ramjet":30i6c8pn said:

So I check on them this morning , two are missing , one is dead , so we're down to 8.

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Sorry you lost some.

The chocolate and the lilac that is in the middle both look thin... you might want to remove a few of the fattest kits this afternoon so there isn't as much competition for the nightly feeding. That little extra boost may help them catch up.

I personally just let natural selection run its course unless I have a convenient foster available. But it seems my runty ones always stay runty (others have had better outcomes), so they just end up going to freezer camp in the end anyway.

Ramjet":30i6c8pn said:

mom is a lilac , pop is a chocolate .... 11 kits , 10 lilac , one chocolate.

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Maybe it is just the lighting, but the kit in the bottom of the pic looks blue. :? Are they out of Evil Blue's line? Does the buck have any blue behind him?

Ramjet":30i6c8pn said:

This mix has some really nice growth rates and the one doe I kept from the last pairing is very large. Over 13lbs.

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Wow! That's a big doe! :shock:

I don't know colors, but great looking kits! Making me anxious to see our first litters born lol. Congrats and I'm glad things are (mostly) going well with them!

MamaSheepdog":2lo4vpfa said:

Sorry you lost some.

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It happens , with that big a litter and a first time mom I expected it.

The chocolate and the lilac that is in the middle both look thin... you might want to remove a few of the fattest kits this afternoon so there isn't as much competition for the nightly feeding. That little extra boost may help them catch up.


I personally just let natural selection run its course unless I have a convenient foster available. But it seems my runty ones always stay runty (others have had better outcomes), so they just end up going to freezer camp in the end anyway.

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I will probably do that now that their numbers are thinned out a bit. I just wanted to give them all a fighting chance from the get go and if some were lost , I didn't have to make the decision.

Maybe it is just the lighting, but the kit in the bottom of the pic looks blue. :? Are they out of Evil Blue's line? Does the buck have any blue behind him?

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Yes , the doe is from Evil Blues lines. The buck does have a blue in the 3rd generation back tho everything else is either black , black otter or chocolate. Blue would be a possibility from him ... but in this case , I think its just the lighting as they all appear the same color accept for the chocolate in person.

Wow! That's a big doe! :shock:

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I posted a pic of her in another thread ..... guess it wouldn't kill me to post it here.


<br /><br /> __________ Sat Apr 26, 2014 12:09 pm __________ <br /><br /> Down to five left of the original eleven .... They were hanging onto momma's nipples , getting drug out of the nest box and finding their way to the ground. They are still out of the box quite often but are now too large to fit thru the wire.

Next time a doe has such a large litter with small kits I'll move her to my grow out cage which is covered in half inch hardware cloth - they cant fall out of that. It can be rough on a doe's hocks tho which is why I only use it as grow out space as it doesn't seem to affect lighter critters.

Run a 4" strip of hardware cloth around the bottom of the cage....that will help.