Kit size difference in same litter

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Captaincatholic

Lord of the Rabbits
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What is the normal difference between kits in the same litter? I realize we have a complicated situation with 2 does sharing a nest of now 16 kits (previously had been 18 or 19). I think the larger kits can potentially eat twice and edge out the smaller kits, so we have probabky a 400-500% difference between the runt and biggest kits. I wil try to get a photo thid evening.

I guess my question is this: Would it be better for me to hold down the does and let the runt eat a couple of times a day (the does are not fans of this) or should I foster the runt out to the litter that is to be born tonight or tomorrow? For reference, the litters are going to be 12 days apart.
 
Captaincatholic said:
I guess my question is this: Would it be better for me to hold down the does and let the runt eat a couple of times a day (the does are not fans of this) or should I foster the runt out to the litter that is to be born tonight or tomorrow? For reference, the litters are going to be 12 days apart.
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Both would work but you should do the first option while you wait to see the size of the Kits in the second litter/the number of kits

I have a show/breeding Buck named Chip who was a runt. We held the does down every day for a while so he could eat and now you can barely tell he was a runt
 
RabbitsOfTheCreek said:
Both would work but you should do the first option while you wait to see the size of the Kits in the second litter/the number of kits

I have a show/breeding Buck named Chip who was a runt. We held the does down every day for a while so he could eat and now you can barely tell he was a runt
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The does really hate it. I think their last owner was pretty hands off with them. Do you have any tricks to holdong the does? We have held them on their backs in my crossed legs on the ground and place the babies on their bellies while I hold the front legs down and steady a baby and one hind leg of the doe with the other hand. I tried holding the doe over a baby, but they just want to run away.
 
Captaincatholic said:
The does really hate it. I think their last owner was pretty hands off with them. Do you have any tricks to holdong the does? We have held them on their backs in my crossed legs on the ground and place the babies on their bellies while I hold the front legs down and steady a baby and one hind leg of the doe with the other hand
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I did that, but someone else would hold them so I could have both hands to hold him

When I had to do it by myself I've hovered their head+front legs with a small towel/washcloth and hold the ends with my legs so I could use my hands for the back legs and the baby
 
RabbitsOfTheCreek said:
I did that, but someone else would hold them so I could have both hands to hold him

When I had to do it by myself I've hovered their head+front legs with a small towel/washcloth and hold the ends with my legs so I could use my hands for the back legs and the baby
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The towel technique sounds promising, thank you!
 
Captaincatholic said:
The does really hate it. I think their last owner was pretty hands off with them. Do you have any tricks to holdong the does? We have held them on their backs in my crossed legs on the ground and place the babies on their bellies while I hold the front legs down and steady a baby and one hind leg of the doe with the other hand. I tried holding the doe over a baby, but they just want to run away.
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Holding the does on their backs can be risky; I've had an unhappy doe suddenly kick the kits off her belly, disemboweling one and causing the other to land on the floor; it died too. This was with two of us holding the doe. :(

I'd agree with @RabbitsOfTheCreek, that you should look at the size of the new litter (both litter size and kit size) and possibly foster him. But 12 days is a pretty big difference.

One option you might try is to split the litter.

I think I remember that you are raising your rabbits in a colony and the two does nested in one burrow, is that right? I've never raised rabbits that way, but since you can apparently pull the babies out, you might think about pulling out the big ones and leaving a few of the smallest ones in the nest for a day or part of a day. The goal is to let them nurse without so much competition. Healthy kits can skip a meal without any big problem, but too many skipped meals results in what you're seeing in the runt. If you know when the does habitually go in to feed, you can tailor the timing of your kit-moving to ensure the little ones get an uninterrupted nursing session with one doe, then the others get fed by the other doe (and maybe the littles get another shot). If you don't know the does' habits, I'd pull the big guys mid-morning and put them back as late as possible at night, and see how that works.

The other thing you might consider is supplementing with goat milk, goat milk Esbilac, kitten milk replacer, or a combination. The kit is still alive so it's getting some milk from the doe(s). If he's nearly two weeks old, supplementing might get him over the hump to where he can begin eating solid food (3-4 weeks).
 
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Alaska Satin said:
Holding the does on their backs can be risky; I've had an unhappy doe suddenly kick the kits off her belly, disemboweling one and causing the other to land on the floor; it died too. This was with two of us holding the doe. :(

I'd agree with @RabbitsOfTheCreek, that you should look at the size of the new litter (both litter size and kit size) and possibly foster him. But 12 days is a pretty big difference.

One option you might try is to split the litter.

I think I remember that you are raising your rabbits in a colony and the two does nested in one burrow, is that right? I've never raised rabbits that way, but since you can apparently pull the babies out, you might think about pulling out the big ones and leaving a few of the smallest ones in the nest for a day or part of a day. The goal is to let them nurse without so much competition. Healthy kits can skip a meal without any big problem, but too many skipped meals results in what you're seeing in the runt. If you know when the does habitually go in to feed, you can tailor the timing of your kit-moving to ensure the little ones get an uninterrupted nursing session with one doe, then the others get fed by the other doe (and maybe the littles get another shot). If you don't know the does' habits, I'd pull the big guys mid-morning and put them back as late as possible at night, and see how that works.

The other thing you might consider is supplementing with goat milk, goat milk Esbilac, kitten milk replacer, or a combination. The kit is still alive so it's getting some milk from the doe(s). If he's nearly two weeks old, supplementing might get him over the hump to where he can begin eating solid food (3-4 weeks).
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Thanks. I didn't want any of the kits to miss meals, but pulling the big kits can be done easily now they are so big and chunky. Will it hurt to keep them in the house and not putsode, as in, will they not grow enough fur to withstand the cold?
 
Alaska Satin said:
Holding the does on their backs can be risky; I've had an unhappy doe suddenly kick the kits off her belly, disemboweling one and causing the other to land on the floor; it died too. This was with two of us holding the doe. :(

I'd agree with @RabbitsOfTheCreek, that you should look at the size of the new litter (both litter size and kit size) and possibly foster him. But 12 days is a pretty big difference.

One option you might try is to split the litter.

I think I remember that you are raising your rabbits in a colony and the two does nested in one burrow, is that right? I've never raised rabbits that way, but since you can apparently pull the babies out, you might think about pulling out the big ones and leaving a few of the smallest ones in the nest for a day or part of a day. The goal is to let them nurse without so much competition. Healthy kits can skip a meal without any big problem, but too many skipped meals results in what you're seeing in the runt. If you know when the does habitually go in to feed, you can tailor the timing of your kit-moving to ensure the little ones get an uninterrupted nursing session with one doe, then the others get fed by the other doe (and maybe the littles get another shot). If you don't know the does' habits, I'd pull the big guys mid-morning and put them back as late as possible at night, and see how that works.

The other thing you might consider is supplementing with goat milk, goat milk Esbilac, kitten milk replacer, or a combination. The kit is still alive so it's getting some milk from the doe(s). If he's nearly two weeks old, supplementing might get him over the hump to where he can begin eating solid food (3-4 weeks).
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Captaincatholic said:
8 fattest kits brought in and weighed. .46#-.56#.
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Wow, those are beautiful kits! If you're planning to keep any for breeding stock, you might mark those since they're obviously good competitors. :) At this age you can tattoo a dot in their ears without much problem if you have a tattoo pen. Although you'll probably be able to tell which ones they are later, you might be surprised at how some of the smaller ones catch up once they start eating solid food, as long as they don't have to compete for that, too.

If you want to prevent that you should make sure there are multiple feeders and wateres; even kits have a dominance hierarchy and the dominant ones will often "guard" the food source. One of my black Satins was the smallest in her litter, but when she got away into her own cage, she grew faster than the others, becoming a 10-3/4lb beauty.
 
Alaska Satin said:
Wow, those are beautiful kits! If you're planning to keep any for breeding stock, you might mark those since they're obviously good competitors. :) At this age you can tattoo a dot in their ears without much problem if you have a tattoo pen. Although you'll probably be able to tell which ones they are later, you might be surprised at how some of the smaller ones catch up once they start eating solid food, as long as they don't have to compete for that, too.

If you want to prevent that you should make sure there are multiple feeders and wateres; even kits have a dominance hierarchy and the dominant ones will often "guard" the food source. One of my black Satins was the smallest in her litter, but when she got away into her own cage, she grew faster than the others, becoming a 10-3/4lb beauty.
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They are gorgwous and fat. I only wish I knew which kits cMe from which pairing. I keep thinking that all the chins came from the chin buck (flemish giant) and sable doe, and the white and the steel came from the himi doe and the steel buck. Is that sensible?

Now I need to figure out when and what to breed to these does next. I am considering putting my REW flemish buck with the himi doe so I know thwir babies are all white, then maybe a silver fox buck could be a quired for thr sable doe. I actually do not know what to use on the sable doe. A friend of mine has generously offered her Californian buck's service. That may be a good choice. In that case we would get lots of sables, right?
Also, when is the best time to breed back with litters of 8? The does seem to be in good condition. I have been spoiling them with rolled oats and raw sunflower kernels, so I think these babies show that the milk has not been too little. I will get a photo of the rest of the litter this morning.
 
Captaincatholic said:
Here is a photo of a medium kit and the runt. Also of one of the dark kits. I do not know the difference between black and steel.

Also, I must have miscounted. I county 17 kits now.
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WOW, that's an incredible difference! I've never had anything that dramatic in any litter. If you consider that the big one has been fed by two does, its size makes sense, but I am just impressed that the runt has even made it this far.

Then again, you may be comparing kits from two different does; some does just have smaller kits, especially when they have a huge litter. It's possible that one doe had 12+ kits and the other had 6 much bigger ones. By the way, I have found that once they're out eating on their own, small kits from huge litters often catch up to bigger kits from smaller litters by the time they reach butchering age.

Steels can look like blacks at first, but as they develop they begin to show gold or white-tipped hairs. I don't raise steels so I don't have a my own photo, but here are two from Green Barn Farm's excellent coat color genetics page Holland Lop Colors: Ticked Group

1674086055158.png 1674086145936.png
They are both gold-tipped steels; as you can see, there is quite a range in regard to how much tipping shows up. Steels look like that when they're agoutis; if they are selfs, the tipping might not be all over, but rather restricted to a few body parts.
 
It's actually better to remove the bigger kits for a feeding than to try to force the doe to do an extra feeding. If you have runty kits, and 17 shared between two does, I'd remove the biggest four for the overnight feedings. Then the next day remove a different set of the biggest four.
 
ladysown said:
It's actually better to remove the bigger kits for a feeding than to try to force the doe to do an extra feeding. If you have runty kits, and 17 shared between two does, I'd remove the biggest four for the overnight feedings. Then the next day remove a different set of the biggest four.
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I agree, but I'd go with removing at least the eight kits that captaincatholic did, if not a couple more. That tiny runty kit probably won't be able to compete with 13 other bigger, more vigorous kits angling for 8-10 teats much better than it did against 17.

@Captaincatholic, it would be very good if you can figure out when the does typically go into nurse; that way you could pull more of the big kits during one of the feeding times, and they would still get fed once a day, which is usually plenty.
 
Alaska Satin said:
I agree, but I'd go with removing at least the eight kits that captaincatholic did, if not a couple more. That tiny runty kit probably won't be able to compete with 13 other bigger, more vigorous kits angling for 8-10 teats much better than it did against 17.

@Captaincatholic, it would be very good if you can figure out when the does typically go into nurse; that way you could pull more of the big kits during one of the feeding times, and they would still get fed once a day, which is usually plenty.
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Thanks. Lat night I took the biggest 8 out and waited until maybe noon to put them back. I will pull them again now and I think I can take the biggest 12 out so there is not as much competiton for the milk. I am giving lots of rolled oats and sunfloer kernel to the does, and plenty of fresh water. I also have fenugreek seed, if that would help. It is one of the ingredients in mothers milk tea for humans, but I am not sure.
 

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