A Litter of 1

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MoonSpiritMom

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So one of my does only had 1 kit. He's about a week old now (I'm guessing since i completely missed finding him for days and by the time i did find him he was already sprouting fur)

So I'm wondering if i should maybe move a kit or two over to his nest because i know kits use each other to keep warm. I wasn't worried earlier because it was pretty warm here (got up to 20 degrees Celsius here this past week) and he's being well cared for by his mother. but today it's much colder and rainy. He's completely covered in the nest and the cage is out of the wind and rain in an out building.

My other doe had a litter of 9 two days after although only 8 survived.

Anyways thoughts? he's got fur now so maybe he'll be fine?
 
How ironic. Last Friday (April Fool's Day) one of our does only had 1 kit!!! How disappointed we were because we were hoping for 5 or 6. These are Holland Lops.

Fortunately we had another Holland Lop that had 7 kits about 5 days earlier. After a lot of thought of what we should do we decided to move the single kit into the nest with the other 7. We did this on Saturday and everything is going well.

The one thing that we have read on RabbitTalk that you will want to do is before just putting kits into another nest box, make sure to rub some fur from the new box on the bunnies before you put them in. They say this fools the doe so that she won't know the kit(s) weren't hers.

What breed are your kits?
 
The kits are all NZ/Flemish

The kit in question has his first fur... he's about a week old now.. belly is always full. I checked him this morning.. he was warm, but of course not at warm as the kits are from the larger litter. but when i touched the singleton, he moved as expected so...? I covered the singleton kit up with straw a bit more. I'll go down and check again though.
 
I had a litter of one, and she did just fine by herself. We do live in TX so the temps are warm. But I have also recently and successfully fostered one who was in a litter of 8 to a litter of 3, simply because I figured it would be easier for the doe to feed 7 and the one who had 3 could handle another. They were born on the same day and I just slipped the kit in with the others. I think the others rubbed their scent on the fostered it naturally as they huddled together, and the doe seems to have no idea she didn't birth that kit.
 
You might also consider moving the singleton to the litter of 8 and rebreed the doe
 
I had a litter of 1 once as well. This was a Dutch/Dwarf kit and I almost lost her the first day! I found her early morning, and she was plump and warm. I left her outside in a nest, just like how I had found her and checked back a few hours later to find her cold! I rushed inside to warm her up and she was fine, but from that moment on, she stayed inside. She did have trouble keeping warm though, so for the first week or two I had a heat pad under the nest box. We live in Washington but we keep our house at around 70-74 degrees.
 
Checked him this morning... he was just fine. he's BIG.. and has fur now. He was well fed.. mom must have fed him not to long before i got there as he was in a milk coma..lol I touched him and he wiggled like normal. If i was going to move kits.. I'd move some to his nest.. Mom is doing a great job taking care of the one kit she has.. so taking some strain off of the doe with 8 would be a good thing i think.
I'm not ready to rebreed this doe any ways.. I don't have the cage space right now as i'm expecting a 3rd litter on the 17th.

I'm going to give the does who are nursing some time off after weaning. and bred my one doe who has never been bred first. by the end of May I'll re breed.
 

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