Count 'em!! Final outcome:

[grumpy]

Mama is a second litter, 10 month old doe. She had eight
her first litter and saved all of them.
I had to take a pic. It's nearly unbelievable.
But, here they are. It was 20 degrees outside. 45 degrees in the rabbitry.

I believe she out-did herself this time.
As luck would have it, she was the only doe due today.
Far too many to survive and thrive, I'm going have to
make some difficult decisions in the morning.

Grumpy.

 

[Zass]

Impressive, how many do you think she can she nurse?

 

[LoraAnnIN]

16? Wow!

 

[SuburbanHomesteader]

Fantastic!! Congratulations - obviously, your program is working.

 

[CochinBrahmaLover]

I counted 17....


Either way - wowzers! Do you have any friends who have nursing does? I know it risks disease, but it could be a payment (like if you foster 6/7 ill give you a 3 free skinned and butchered or whatever) .
Even if they end up as dog food or snake food, very impressive! Perhaps tell her to cool it down next time?

 

[grumpy]

There are several small ones that need to be culled.
I hate doing it, but there's no other way.
I've not got a doe to foster them to.

That still leaves her with well over ten.
I don't like taxing a doe that much and the
young grow slower with that many in the litter.
I'll definitely hold back several of her daughters for the future.
If I had my druthers, I'd like to trim the litter down to 7 or 8.
I've had does in this line kindle and raise 11,
but the kits are smaller and weight gain is sacrificed.

We'll see, I'll know more later today.
Mother Nature may handle part of the problem for me.

BTW: She had sixteen and saved them all.

Grumpy.

 

[Mary Ann's Rabbitry]

wow... you are right grumpy they will not all make it..

 

[dayna]

That doe and her daughters are all keepers! 16 and all alive.

Sadly, I hear you on culling some. Hopefully she can raise the ones you left her with well. Maybe since they are slower growers keep a couple daughters from this litter since it'll take them longer to get to butchering weight anyway.

 

[AmysMacdog]

Wow! What a huge litter!! :shock: Congrats Grumpy!! Sorry you have to cull some but I understand on the large litters sacrifice good weight gain thing though. I got tired of having huge litters of tiny babies that wouldn't reach size in a reasonable amount of time. :clover:

 

[OneAcreFarm]

What about splitting the litter and letting her nurse half in the morning and half in the evening?

 

[SUNSET]

wow! I did not even know they could have that many at one time

 

[ohiogoatgirl]

Holy heck! How many was it grumpy? I had counted 17 as well. It would be a nice litter if another doe was a great nurser but had smaller litters. Then could just pop over the extras. Wow-eee!!!

 

[Northwinds Rabbitry]

Wow that's huge!!!! And to bad about. Having to cull
Congrats

 

[grumpy]

I've bred these rabbits from stock that produce large litters.
:x I "think" this is a bit much. :x

I've dreamed about producing does that consistently have 8 healthy kits.
In a perfect world, that would be an ideal meat doe.

There was/is 16 kits in the litter.

Grumpy.

 

[ladysown]

divide the litter in half. Give her some in the morning and some in the evening. She should be able to raise all 17 of them if you do that.

 

[dayna]

Being as Grumpy raises production rabbits I would imagine culling some would be the best option. Folks don't always like to hear that, but he has to do whats best for his doe. I imagine she is more important than the kits business wise and raising 16 kits would be terribly taxing on a doe that isn't a production animal let alone one that is "working".

 

[grumpy]

All 16 had survived 48 hours.
I pulled the litter again this afternoon.
Most of them looked like they'd swallowed Ping-Pong balls.
Nice fat tummies...except two.
They were so small, not doing good at all.
I hated it, but I had to put them down.

That leaves 14 still with their mama.
There's two or three more that are on the small side.
But, they were wigglin' with the best of 'em.
The mama doe is young and strong.
I may end up culling those other two or three kits,
but I'm giving them a little more time.

Maybe......I'm giving 'mama' more time.
Time to see what she can do with that many babies.
So far, everything is going better than I'd hoped.
I felt sure there would be a small handful that failed.

We'll see. It's a herculean task. She might fool all of us.

grumpy.

 

[dayna]

Grumpy that doe needs a gold star on her cage!

 

[zee]

WOW!!

 

[grumpy]

Well, today was the day I finally had time to move this large litter.
Overall, I thought they evened out pretty good considering their numbers.

At 67 days old, they averaged 4pounds 5ounces for all 12.
I moved them, weighed them, and placed them in the new grow-outs
I installed a couple of days ago.

Then: I checked their Mama...sure enough she was still milking.
I never bred her back because I didn't want to place an undue
burden on her while she was raising the 12 kits.

Anyway, I took 4 out of the grow-outs and put them back with her.
I've been cutting back on feed for the past week wanting to make sure she
dried up. "Apparently", it didn't work. Gave them a good amount of hay
and cut back some more on the pellets.

Here's a couple of pics of the litter divided into two pens. Their mother
is out of that line of excellent milkers I've got.

For someone wanting an excellent group of young does, these would
be the cat's meow.

In comparison, I had another litter of only 6 head. These are out of a
very consistent doe that is unrelated to any of my stock. I've had her
for two seasons and I like her.....but not as much as my other stock.

At 63 days, (9 weeks on the nose) her litter of 6 averaged just a little
over 4pounds 5ounces. I've thought about saving a son out of her as
a blend back into my main bloodlines. But, I'm having second thoughts.

To me, it's a no-brainer "which" is the better line.

Thanks for looking.

Grumpy