Two does, one nest - 11 kits!

[Graciela]

Hi everyone glad to be here, thanks for having me. I live in Uruguay (so it's early summer here, for reference), and just started trying to breed rabbits for meat as we have a dog sanctuary and it gets expensive and some of them are allergic to more traditional proteins.

Lost the first round of kits due to not being prepared and she didn't have a good nest. We bred her back after about a week. Now, we have a mature doe and a much smaller, younger doe, (who we did not think was caught) to whom the older doe is hugely attached. We let them stay together, and when the older one started pulling fur I made up her new nest. It's a wooden veg crate stood up on end vertically, with a wide board banged across the front bottom so it's deep. It was filled up to the top of the board with soft leafy alfalfa, and I punched a hole down almost to the bottom with my fist.

The mature doe pulled LOTS of fur and had six or seven big nice looking squirmy kits the next morning - I just had a quick peek and let her be. The next day I went out and the younger doe had pulled a bunch more fur and there were now 11 kits! I saw one thread here say that does who are well bonded with each other may "sister mom" just fine using a single nest, and as I can't tell the difference between litters I'm leaving the situation be in hopes they will simply feed the kits in tandem and all will be well. There is zero aggression between the does or towards the kits from either.

Right call?

 

[SarniaTricia]

I think so... If they are bonded, they should do just fine.... keep an eye on the condition of the does, in case one ends up feeding them all herself... (you may need to supplement with some sunflower seed and oatmeal or rich alfalfa hay)

Good luck and welcome to the adventure.

 

[Graciela]

Thank you! We're feeding alfalfa because anything else is super hard to come by here - everyone just grows and feeds alfalfa I haven't seen timothy anywhere. We live in a rural area about 20 miles from the coast in a little valley surrounded by the tiniest mountains. Everyone pretty much shops local and feeds what is at hand so they've been on a standard pellet free-feed plus free-feed alfalfa plus some carrot and sweet potato once a day and maybe a chunk of a cabbage for a treat. They stay pretty sleek and healthy, not too fat but well rounded. We're coming up on high summer so I'm monitoring closely for the heat and need to paint their cage roofs white. I'm really hoping this double litter makes it!!

 

[ladysown]

I've had does raise kits together and it's gone really well. Just watch them but mostly let them be.

 

[Graciela]

We only lost two, and the nine remaining are fat and sassy! Lifted up the cage lid this morning and smelled "the smell". Dug way down into the bottom of the nest and sure enough a little emaciated one was dead, and another skeleton-like one buried next to him was still kicking a little but too far gone, so I dispatched it quickly.

I'd been trying not to bother them too much after the initial count of eleven, just snuck one at random out every day to make sure they were eating and everything had looked fine. I suspect the runts got shoved down to the bottom of the pile and just couldn't fight their way up at feeding time.

Nine is better than the zero survivors from the first litters so I'm going to concentrate on the positive. This is my first go-round with rabbits and I'm learning. At least the rest of them are plump as can be!