First time Mom trying to make nest on cage floor!

nvstickbow · Dec 13, 2013

One of my does is apparently getting close to kindling, judging by the fact that she is pulling hair from her stomach with earnest. That part is great. The bad part is that despite my giving her a nestbox with shavings and hay, she has decided that the corner of the cage is the best place to build her nest :? ! I picked up all of the hair and attached hay and placed it in the nest box hoping to coax her into having the litter in the box. Not sure if that was a good idea or not but I figured it may possibly work.

I'm a little worried as I have to leave for work in a couple hours and won't be home until after midnight. Nighttime temperatures have been getting down in single digits, although they area in a barn with a heat lamp. I sure hope she decides that the warmth of the nestbox is a better place to have her babies than on the darn wire floor.

On the plus side I anticipate having my third litter of popples by the time that I get home from work. Very excited about that. My free walk-on bunny had a litter of nine on Wednesday. We'll see how many miss Andrea gives me tonight I hope.

Zab · Dec 13, 2013

Did you put the nestbox in the corner she chose?

Good luck!

akane · Dec 13, 2013

They do that frequently. A nest box isn't really natural to a rabbit. They evolved to dig down not jump up so they often have to be taught and may lose their first litter. Make sure the box is not in her potty corner and you may want to move it to where she chose if possible. Once they learn what it's for they usually use the box without fail even if you put them in a large area with many options. My creme d'argent in a horse stall with other pregnant does used to bury her boxes 3' deep in bedding and hay during winter. We wouldn't see the kits for 4weeks but they survived subzero temps. My rabbits raised in colony were much harder to train to a nest box because they had no reason to use one. They'd just pile everything in a corner. Sometimes not a good corner. One mini rex ate through the plywood floor and dug through the compacted aglime because the instinct to make a burrow for her kits was so strong.

OneAcreFarm · Dec 13, 2013

Move the box to the spot she chose.....

nvstickbow · Dec 13, 2013

I will try moving the nestbox. It didn't even occur to me to put it where she wanted to make her nest. Thank you both for the input and advice. I really hope to not lose her first litter. Hoping her sister is a little quicker to catch on as she is due tomorrow as well.

MamaSheepdog · Dec 13, 2013

Some does will change locations even if you move the box to her chosen corner. I had one doe that did that. I put another box in the cage with her so she had no choice but to use one. Depending on how large her cage is, you may need several.

If you don't have a bunch of extra nests, I would recommend lining the floor of her cage with cardboard and adding enough bedding to completely cover the cage floor with at least a couple inches of shavings/hay/etc.

If you don't have baby saver wire, use zipties to attach cardboard pieces at least 4" high to the sides of the cage as well to prevent the little ones from crawling through the sides. Small kits can make it through 1" x 2" wire, and I have had large newborns get their heads stuck trying to crawl through. It wasn't pretty.

Good luck with the litter! I hope she chooses to use her box! :clover:

akane · Dec 13, 2013

We've cut so many kits out of wire in the colonies. We had rats excavating a hole along the edge of the building so we put some chicken wire over the gap only to have a mini rex doe decide to make her nest there. The newborns partially fell through the hexagon wire. It wasn't too difficult to recover them since a small pair of wire cutters would do the job. Several couple week old kits have gotten their heads stuck in shelving panels because they could fit through them as little babies and never gave it up until they got stuck. That was a lot more work because it required the bolt cutters and fitting them alongside the kits head plus wiggling them out without them hitting the sharp cut edges of the bar we removed next to them. Then we had some dislocating their back legs running through field fencing that kept the does in separate pens. Kits are not smart about wire.

Zab · Dec 14, 2013

Reading this thread makes me so happy that my entire colony is lined with 19mm hardware cloth and wood some 7 iches up from the floor. By the rime any young kit come in contact with that they're too big to fit through..