PICS! Velma's first litter!

[Comet007]

When DH went down to check at six this morning, Velma had just finished kindling! She had twelve total, with two stillborn kits that didn't look like they finished developing. So that makes ten kits in each litter! Not too shabby for our first time out!

If anyone has some input on colors, that would be great!

In the Nest:


The two that didn't make it were very pink (no idea if it's because their color never developed?), the rest were half and half dark and light!


It appears to us that we have two broken blacks and one solid- but the other two look lighter, so I'm not sure what they are? Ideas?


Black kit? I wasn't sure about the pink showing, but I looked at the girls nest box picture from when they were born and they had two siblings that were all black, and they looked just like this at birth:


The light colored kits - you can see that Velma didn't finish cleaning the runt. She was in the pile with the DOA kits when DH went down and found them, she wasn't really warm, but not really cold either. His timing was impeccable - otherwise we might have lost this one too. So I'm guessing that Velma thought the runt wouldn't make it and rejected her? She is just as wiggly as the rest of her pals, but maybe it took her a while to start moving. Anyway, I just now cleaned her up (and checked her sex!), because I wanted to give her a chance to warm up and then we'll put them back outside - which she did nicely.

I can see that we have one broken red - one or two of them look just pink all over (REW's?), but some of them look like they have just a little hint of color - any ideas?

 

[MR_ND]

:congratulations: on your second litter. Sorry I'm not much help with colors.

 

[Zass]

Some could be charlies. Two copies of broken pattern gives you a mostly white rabbit with a bit of color.

 

[skip]

You got some excellent producers there, for a bunch of first timers! I got so excited for your upcoming litters that I had convinced myself my does were due the same day, imagine my frustration when I realized they're actually due Monday :?

I figured it out when I used this website that has an elapsed time calculator, and I think it's a really cool tool for us. You'd mentioned something about does delivering at the same time they conceived, and that got me wondering about how long their 31 days really lasts. You can go here and enter in when you bred them and see exactly how long their pregnancy lasted, down to the minute: http://www.mathcats.com/explore/elapsedtime.html

I entered my does in last night and left the tab open so I can re-check the countdown every time I get online

 

[Sagebrush]

So glad that you got two big healthy litters!! What Zass said, Charlies

 

[RustyPocket]

Congrats on your litter, and oh, poor Velma, kindling 12 must have been a real stuggle. All the babies look extremely cute.

One of my does is a Dark Chinchilla, and her Chin babies are usually coloured just like the "lighter" Blacks of yours. However, I am not an expert, that would simply be my first guess.

 

[Comet007]

Thanks everyone - well, it could be, I guess, that the lighter blacks could still be broken blacks? But maybe it won't be as dark - or maybe that will be the chestnut color? I couldn't find any good pictures to compare, so will have to wait and see. The pale babies, some of them seem to have a silvery brownish haze to them - it might be harder to detect in the pictures, but when we look at the five pale ones we see 4 different colors. Might just be variations at birth and they will even out, I guess time will tell.

One of them might be a Charlie (genetically 25% chance of Charlie's), that one has just a hint of darker color around the ears and eyes and is one of the buns who has some grayish brown color to it. Is that what you call smut? That sometimes clears up as they get fur? It will be fun to watch them and see what happens. It is a very different looking Charlie than what Daphne's look like, because there are no black spots anywhere on its body. The other light ones (one looks like a red) don't have any dark coloring anywhere, and one of them looks like it has that same coloring effect to it. The runt is definitely very pink, like what I expected a REW to look like!

I'm actually a bit surprised that the blacks/dark ones have such large blanket patterns. They must take after Shaggy, because Velma has such a small amount of coloring. It's so interesting to see what colors/patters they have and will have - I really hoped some would come out with the chestnut/tort colorings, so we will see with future litters, I guess!

At birth anyway, the girls ended up with some slightly different looking litters, considering they are from the same litter. I'm glad because that means we may just keep both of them, unless one has a daughter that comes along looking like the perfect replacement doe! At any rate - Shaggy is now proven and has the recessive self gene that I was so hopeful for. I'm really glad that it appears we started out with a good line, and that we bought from someone who was breeding for meat and had the same goals as us!

-- Sun May 18, 2014 5:32 pm --

Congrats on your litter, and oh, poor Velma, kindling 12 must have been a real stuggle. All the babies look extremely cute.

One of my does is a Dark Chinchilla, and her Chin babies are usually coloured just like the "lighter" Blacks of yours. However, I am not an expert, that would simply be my first guess.

Unfortunately she finished kindling just before 6 am, so we missed them! I do know from watching Daphne - if she hadn't been so frantic because she waited until the last second to build a nest, it might have all looked easy! Though there were a few times she was acting like she was really tired and in distress- but when the time came to deliver she just looked busy! We thought she was just still building the nest, and suddenly there were several popples in there!

So I wonder if that means those two might be chestnuts? I don't think I can get chinchilla coloring with mine, but chestnuts are possibilities!

 

[Marinea]

Congrats on the wee ones!

Oh, I love your nails

 

[Comet007]

Congrats on the wee ones!

Oh, I love your nails

Thank you - it's been such a great experience! I need to do my nails, they are growing out. The hazards of the trade, like the cobbler whose kids have no shoes.

 

[dayna]

Love those babies!

 

[ek.blair]

Awe!! Yay Velma! Congrats on the big litters!!

 

[Comet007]

Thank you!