Daphne peed on her litter today! ADVICE?

[Comet007]

When I went to pull Ducky for some goat milk time, I found Daph's entire litter shivering and soaked with her urine. What are the possible causes of this, and should I give her the nest box back? I'm concerned that she will do it at night time and we will wake up to eight dead babies! Advice, please! The kits are 12 days old, she's never done this before - we did clean the nest boxes out last night, but she peed a good 18 hours later, and she fed the kits in the meantime! Velma didn't do anything to her kits.

 

[Miss M]

I don't know why she would do it.

I would thoroughly clean the box, dry the kits, make them a new nest, and keep the nest indoors for a few days at least, just taking out for feeding time.

:shrug:

 

[Comet007]

Well, since I only have your advice and my own feelings, we are going to keep the litter in for the night at least. I can't stand the thought of her doing it again tonight and finding dead kits in the morning when I could have prevented it. I hope this wasn't because we cleaned the nest - we did pull more fur from her and put it in the nest, plus the 18 hour time gap makes me think that's not it? Who knows.

We will put them out in the morning and I will rush down during my short breaks tomorrow to make sure they haven't been peed on again! I'm lucky that I work from home! If she doesn't do it all day then maybe we will leave them overnight. Or not, we'll see. As much as Daphne is a fun doe who is getting friendlier, I now fully understand to just cull a doe then and there. I literally wanted to wring her neck when I found the wet kits. DH is feeding the breeding stock tonight, so she will still get her BOSS and oats/grain mix.

 

[Marinea]

I got nothin'.

I haven't experienced this, but I agree with Miss M. I would take the nest box to her for feedings for a few days, then give her a try again. If everything goes well, I would likely chalk it up to an "oops".

 

[Comet007]

Well, other than this she has been an ideal mama, so if she doesn't do it again I won't count it as a strike. She should know, though... since we have Avie in this batch (solid red doe), she and Velma are being measured against a list of desirable traits and the loser will likely end up going to cooking school about 3 breeding cycles from now. Though if they both continue to be outstanding we might stretch things to keeping three does. We have three cages with baby wire just in case we decided that we need 3 working does, and since our son (who eats 3,800 calories a day) is living with us we might be able to use the meat from three does!

 

[Miss M]

Like Marinea, I wonder if it could have been a complete accident. Like get in there, almost done feeding the kits, and then suddenly OMYGOODNESSIGOTTAPEENOW!!!

This is a wire-bottom nest box? Just asking, because this can happen in a solid-bottom nest box that doesn't have good absorption, just from the kits peeing.

 

[Comet007]

Like Marinea, I wonder if it could have been a complete accident. Like get in there, almost done feeding the kits, and then suddenly OMYGOODNESSIGOTTAPEENOW!!!

This is a wire-bottom nest box? Just asking, because this can happen in a solid-bottom nest box that doesn't have good absorption, just from the kits peeing.

Yeah, no way that's what it was. I found them mid-day, so she hadn't fed them for probably 5 hours or so. It may well have been an oops, but not one that makes any sense.

They are in a wire nest box (the Sani-nest) that attaches under the floor of the cage. Then it has a cardboard lining, and inside that is a bamboo basket where the nest is. There's about a 2" layer of fresh hay at the bottom- we had just completely changed out the nesting material with fresh hay and newly pulled fur from Daphne 18 hours prior to me finding the wet and shivering kits. The old nesting material had actually performed really well, it was dry to the touch almost to the bottom of the basket.

When I found the kits today they were absolutely drenched, soaking wet on the tops of their heads and their backs, and it was fresh, covering their heads and backs and down the sides of six kits, and just a little on the two kits that were deeper into the nest. Daphne had peed directly into the opening at the top of the nest box, and her usual bathroom spot is in the opposite corner of the cage. This was not like the little yellow spots from the kits peeing on each other, we had seen that on various kits before.

 

[dangerbunny]

I just had a doe do this today for the first time ever, I was like " really rabbit? That seemed like a good plan" I have a baby and never had the desire to pee on him so it must be a rabbit thing.

 

[Comet007]

I did eventually figure out why Daphne did it, only because she suddenly was peeing at the front of the cage in the corner where her water bottle is, and she had never done that before! I realized that we had installed the Sani-nest (subterranean nest box) in the corner that she originally used to pee in. It was the only logical place to put the nest, but we didn't take that into consideration. There's a 4 inch section of cage floor between the side wall and the nest opening, and I think that she was trying to pee in that corner and just plain missed the corner and hit the babies instead!