High mortality of kits could the buck be the problem?

[ckcs]

Our lionheads have had a total of 12 babies from 6 litters. Only 4 have made it. Does 3 and 4 are young with their first litter at around 7 months. Does 1 and 2 were several years old. None of the does have had prior litters. I am starting to suspect the buck may have something going on that is causing problems.

Doe #1
litter of 1, survived and is about 18 months old
litter of 2, both stillborn

Doe #2
litter of 2, both stillborn

Doe #3
litter of 3, 1 was stillborn, 2 survived and are 9 weeks old
litter of 2, 1 was stillborn, other appears fine but is only a few hours old

Doe #4
litter of 2, both stillborn

 

[ohiogoatgirl]

i only had a couple litters of lionheads before i moved on from them. but mine did have litters of 4-5 each time. i had 2 does and think i had 2 litters from each before i got out of them.

hope someone else can be more helpful.

 

[Jack]

Older virgin does...
bringing them into production is a challange

as for the rest, um,
Lionheads are NEW, it's VERY possible that they were bred this way(and I'd lay money on this, is a pretty well know phenomena esp. with little breeds)
They are picked for "quality" and culled for it, so productive does get tossed for ones that throw 'quality'
what you end up with is a rabbit that produces one or two rabbits, it's the reason when I was a kid, and in ND's that we keep 'brooders' does that were OVER size but produced 4-8 babies a litter, instead of 'show does' that had 2 or 3, one of which was a peanut, and you could only expect 1 to survive.

 

[ohiogoatgirl]

Older virgin does...
bringing them into production is a challange

as for the rest, um,
Lionheads are NEW, it's VERY possible that they were bred this way(and I'd lay money on this, is a pretty well know phenomena esp. with little breeds)
They are picked for "quality" and culled for it, so productive does get tossed for ones that throw 'quality'
what you end up with is a rabbit that produces one or two rabbits, it's the reason when I was a kid, and in ND's that we keep 'brooders' does that were OVER size but produced 4-8 babies a litter, instead of 'show does' that had 2 or 3, one of which was a peanut, and you could only expect 1 to survive.

one reason i didnt stick with them. i wasnt thinkin as much about that. good point. show LHs are supposed to be about 3lb i think (could be wrong) and i had a trio and all were about 4.5/5lbs.

ckcs, where did you get them? breeder, shower, show breeder,...?

 

[skysthelimit]

It's normal for first time dwarf breed does to have 2 or 3 litters of dead kits before they have a successful litter. Patriot, the holland had two litters of all dead kits before she had her successful litter at 8 mos old. The older holland had only one live litter, but that kit died at 12 weeks. None of my other hollands had successful litters, and as Jack said, they were started late, and they may not have been selected for production, but show size. It may even be that you never get live kits from the older does. You will just have to try and see. I gave the does five tries. Interesting for me, is Patriot is my smallest doe, show quality, but the only one to have successful litters. She is definitely an improvement on the small show doe/litter size equation. She has five kits every time.

 

[ckcs]

one reason i didnt stick with them. i wasnt thinkin as much about that. good point. show LHs are supposed to be about 3lb i think (could be wrong) and i had a trio and all were about 4.5/5lbs.

ckcs, where did you get them? breeder, shower, show breeder,...?

Baby Cakes came from a local breeder that also shows. They didn't sell her as show quality and I do not think she is of show quality. Jose was our first lionhead and I just fell in love with him. I got him from another local breeder. I gather he was one of her bucks since he was around 4 years old when we got him. I will fully admit I know almost nothing about show quality rabbits. While I love the lionhead breed, ultimately they are not the breed I want to keep. I like them a lot but really want English Lops, English Angoras and Flemish Giants.

 

[Dood]

Did the dead kits look different than their siblings?

Jose looks like a dwarf to me (from pics in a different thread) so I wonder if the high mortality is due to bad luck and getting alot of 'peanuts'.

They should only be 25% of the litter but genetics doesn't always work out that way.

 

[GBov]

I had a buck that I could NOT cross with one of my does, all the kits were born dead. She has good litter with any other buck.

And when I crossed him with another doe I got good big litters with lots of color but always one or two that failed to thrive and died off. One made it to 9 weeks but died. I couldnt tell if it was a boy or a girl, it had a grainy textured bump instead of anything normal.

Even as friendly as he was I finally got rid of him, we just couldnt take the bad ones, they were just too sad.

 

[ohiogoatgirl]

that is sad GBov ):

hm... i'm thinking about genetics... *cue the rumbling*
maybe some just carry higher percent chance of peanuts... like if you kept getting lionheads that were DD (no dwarf gene) then eventually you could get a lionhead but almost weed out the dwarf gene. could the same be said for breeding lines that tend to throw peanuts?

 

[ckcs]

Did the dead kits look different than their siblings?

Jose looks like a dwarf to me (from pics in a different thread) so I wonder if the high mortality is due to bad luck and getting alot of 'peanuts'.

They should only be 25% of the litter but genetics doesn't always work out that way.

The babies were same size, didn't look like peanuts. I just weighed Jose and he was 3lbs 4oz if that helps any. We lost the new babies tonight through an accident of some sort. I recently built a three cage rack. This baby was in the top rack. I had protection on the sides of the cage that they nest was in as mama doesn't seem to want to use the nest box. The nest was in the back right corner of the cage. My guess is somehow it got to the front of the cage and fell out and landed behind the water bottle of the bottom cage. The doe in the cage pulled the rabbit in as we found it dead in the middle of her cage. There was blood on the kit presumably from pulling it in the cage. I'll look more in the morning for evidence of blood on the cage to see where it happened.

 

[Frosted Rabbits]

Any time you are dealing with dwarfism genetics, you will have health issues that are 'unseen' One can have what appears, externally, to be a 'normal' structure, but then, upon necropsy, find internal issues that one could only imagine! One of the first necropsies I did on a dwarf rabbit (he was fused in his pelvic area)showed a malformed heart and lungs-- IN one breed of dogs, the dwarfism may show up as a slight twist in the front leg bones-- and the animals do well as far as endurance, BUT--a litter of 8 pups-- only three may survive- Most die before the eyes start to open.
A mini-rex breeder told me to always use breeders that have longer ears-- a 'false' dwarf- paired with w shorter eared rabbit -a true dwarf- to get healthy litters that have lower mortality rates than the short ear to short ear breedings.

 

[Dood]

There is a picture of doe#3 (AKA Baby Cakes) on another thread and she looks like she lacks the dwarf gene-streamlined/racey body and longer ears. She is also the most productive doe so far and accounts for 3 of the 4 surviving kits. Also, the two kits in the same thread (Twinky and Hoho) don't look like dwarfs to me, but I am more familiar with Netherlands than Lionheads.

Could you post pics of the other 3 does and the older surviving kit?

If the does are true dwarfs and the kit isn't, then perhaps Frosted Rabbits is correct and Jose is more prone to sire peanuts or he passes on some other associated deformity with his dwarf gene.

 

[AnnClaire]

Have you tried to foster the successful doe to one of the others that kindles near the same time ... sort of give her a chance to nurse and learn what kindling is all about?

 

[ckcs]

Have you tried to foster the successful doe to one of the others that kindles near the same time ... sort of give her a chance to nurse and learn what kindling is all about?

I haven't tried that yet.

Dood, I will try and get pictures up over the weekend. One of the Lionhead does that has had 1 litter with 2 dead kits, is due in the next few days (today is 29 days). I have another Lionhead doe that will be a first time mama due next week. We used our Holland Lop with him instead of our Lionhead buck. We could use a nice litter to cheer us up. After the baby fell out of the cage and died, 1 of my sons fish died and tonight someone bought bought HoHo and Twinkie. We had no plans on keeping them but they sure where a lot of fun and are missed.

 

[AnnClaire]

ckcs, don't give up, some folks have had real rough starts, but then, when everybody gets everything figured out and done in the right order, then you will have litters and babies to raise.

There are also dry spells due to weather, changes in feed quality from one bag to another, predators harrassing the rabbits at night, etc.