Popples!

[fuzzy9]

Had a litter of 3 kits born this morning, and I have a couple questions.

1. With a litter of 3, how soon can we breed mom back, and wean these 3? They are really big kits, well fed, and I don't forsee any problems with this litter. This is her second, and her first was healthy as well.

2. This is the does second litter, her first yielded 4 kits, and this litter has 3. Both bucks she was bred to are bucks who are producing much larger sized litters. I'm not really happy with 3 and 4 litters, I'd much prefer a bit higher average like 6 or 7. At what point do we say she's not producing the numbers we'd like, and move on? Her sister just produced a litter of 10 live on her first try, and two others we bought with her also produced higher numbers. I feel as though, with cage space limited, we almost need to move on to replace her if she's not going to produce adequately, but I do want to make sure we give her the tries she deserves before doing anything drastic. She's a great mom to her kits!

 

[MaggieJ]

I'd give her one more try. There could be mitigating circumstances and great moms are not all that common. If you wait two weeks, the kits will have plenty of time to nurse and you will still get the next litter pretty quickly. I really would not suggest sooner than that.

 

[currituckbun]

This is just a thought, but if you timed her litters with the ones who are producing 10, could you use her as an adoptive mom who will take care of the 3-4 too many that will take so much out of your high producers. This might work out for you to have two moms with 6-7 instead of one with 10 and one with 4. My doe who had 10, lost weight, and had to rest 6 weeks before I bred her again. I really had to work at getting her back to a good weight. Her kits grew well but all of them took longer to reach a good weight and they were quite a bit smaller than the other doe's who had 6 kits a month later.
Plus I am finding out, good moms might be harder to come by than you think.

 

[fuzzy9]

Thanks for the info! I'm really knocking hard on wood, because we've been blessed with great moms! I've had really good luck with my first timers I guess. I've had more problems with having to cull aggressive rabbits (all from the same line) than anything else, and 2 does who are on their last try to produce anything at all.

We're not gonna make a snap decision I guess. We'll rebreed her, and see what batch #3 brings.

 

[sammysue63]

We don't count the first litter at all, we call it TLL (the learning litter). We usually give them 3 strikes after that and if we still have problems...well you know. We consider a strike as 3 wks in a row refusing to lift, a missed breeding, or if she is a really bad mom. If she just has small litters but is a really good mom we will usually keep her as a foster, but we are breeding 3 to 4 does a week so it makes it easier. Thats just what we do but it may not work for everyone.