Kits all different sizes? : Meat Rabbits

I have spent the last 10 or so days coaxing Taz onto the nestbox to give her litter an extra feed once a day as they all looked so bloody thin, she didn't seem to be making enough milk for them but with the extra time on the nest they have all lived.

Yay!

This is the day 40 litter that has 4 harlequins, 1 tricolor, one broken black and one who's color I have never seen before but omg it is an ultra-rich dark chocolate color and broken to boot.

But there is a huge difference in sizes now, one of them is huge, three are what I would call normal for their age - eyes just starting to open - and three of them are scrawny itty bitty things.

If they all got extra feeding, does anyone know why the size difference?

Standard Rex, in case I forgot to mention it.

I've got a litter of 7 like that right now - one is twice the size of most of the others, and there is a runt that is only 2/3 the size of most. Yet Lacey takes good care of them, so I guess the biggest just gets the best teat and the runt gets squeezed off the good ones. I think I may have forgotten to give her raspberry leaves when she kindled - the yellow flies are horrible this year.

with mixed genetics from widely different lines..., often kits vary widely in size.. in time, ..as you breed a "closed herd".. this problem goes away...

michaels4gardens wrote:with mixed genetics from widely different lines..., often kits vary widely in size.. in time, ..as you breed a "closed herd".. this problem goes away...

These are my very first fully pedigree Rex kits, both parents are papered. And the does last kits, peds only on her side, were all much of a muchness, size wise.

I would shelve the largest kits for a day/ feeding. It'll give the smaller ones a chance to fill their bellies with little competiotion. I did this with my 1st litter which had 12. Repeated every few days till they had evened out in size.

They have all evened out nicely now. So cute.