Overfed Kits

[SoDak Thriver]

I have a doe who just had another (and her last; she's gotta go) tiny litter. The last litter was a litter of 1 live and 4 stillborn that dribbled out over several days. This litter is 2 live with 3 stills 48 hrs later. The litter with one live rabbit died at about 14 days and I suspect he was literally fed to death. He was so huge. These two kits are headed the same direction and I need help picking the best of my options.

These kits are 12 days old and this pic doesn't do justice to how fat they are. I have another doe with 6 kits 17 days old. This doe is a great mom and can easily handle litters up to 13. I could:

1. Remove the nest box for all but a brief time in the morning and a brief time at night for feeding.

2. Move one or more of the older kits in with this litter so the doe is getting a better emptying at feeding time and she doesn't feel the need to feed constantly.

3. Just move these kits in with the older litter and give their mother some mint.

What would you do?

 

[KimitsuKouseki]

I'd do option 1, your other kits are too old to be fostered safelly (unless you know your doe is a great foster) No need to risk and stress the other litter.
If you monitor how much she feeds em by taking them away, her milk will go down eventually.

 

[SoDak Thriver]

Another question: put them in briefly tonight, or skip a feeding and wait until morning?

 

[KimitsuKouseki]

I'd say briefly, otherwise it might be too much of a shock for both the mom and the kits.

 

[hotzcatz]

Switch the litters and let the mum rabbit with more milk have more kits?

As for the small litters, try a different commercial pellet if you're feeding pellets. In 2011 they approved an herbicide to be sprayed on alfalfa fields to 'ripen' (die off) them evenly before harvest. There's enough herbicide residue on the alfalfa to cause die back if the manure from the animals fed the alfalfa is used on gardens. We had no litters for a year (and we had rabbits constantly bred) and then switched to organic alfalfa in mid-April and had one litter so far. Four more are due at the beginning of next month, we will see if the single litter is just a fluke or if litters will now show up now that we've switched to organic feed. An email was sent to the pellet producer and they said they relied on the farmers to meet USDA regulations. (i.e., they don't know how the alfalfa was grown)

I'm at the beginning of looking into this, so I don't have a definitive answer yet, but it may be a productive line of inquiry if you want to check into it as a cause of your decreased litter sizes and amount of still borns.

 

[SoDak Thriver]

Switch the litters and let the mum rabbit with more milk have more kits?

Yeah, I was thinking of that. Might try it today. Those other two are doing better now that I've had them out for a while (thanks, Kimitsu), but I don't like to have nestboxes in the house this time of year.

As for the small litters...

This is totally on the doe. She's beautiful, last year at show she could have been the picture used for the Standards of Perfection book, but she's a crummy mom. For some reason, she's just not cut out for kits. All of her litters have been like this. The other rabbits are doing fine on commercial pellets. <br /><br /> -- Thu Jun 01, 2017 3:40 pm -- <br /><br /> Update:

Switching the litters worked great! My older, calmer doe now has two kits getting fed what they should. Now that they're not being over-fed, they are moving and developing normally.

My younger, "angsty" doe has 6 kits constantly pestering her and keeping her mammary glands comfortable. Much better.

 

[MaggieJ]

Glad it worked out okay, SoDak.

Hotzcatz' suggestion was a good one. :goodjob:

 

[KimitsuKouseki]

Only reason why I suggested taking em away is cause I've had horrible luck fostering kits with my does

Atm I'm running in the same issue maybe though. My does gave birth 3 days ago and Beckett had 6 babies but when I checked earlier their bellies were so full they where hard to the touch from the pressure. I might have to borrow some of BigMama's 10 babies to try and see if she'll foster. BigMama is doing fine feeding everyone well, but Beckett might need more babies or something x.x I'll see how they are in the morning.