Two Strikes, You're Out?

[Schipperkesue]

So I usually employ the 'three strikes, your out' motto to rabbit keeping, meaning three problems and that particular animal goes to freezer camp. However, this time I may make an exception and draw the line at two strikes.

I have a black meat cross doe. She had problems with her first litter They were born over the space of a week. All on the wire, possibly born dead...or not, all half eaten. (Or maybe totally eaten...) then she lost condition fast as she would not eat. I fed her hay and got her appetite back, and her condition followed suit. Soon she was fat and sassy again. I was rebreeding so I bred her as well, her second chance. She had one half eaten on the wire, and the others are alive in the nest, born all at once this time. But none of them have ears or tails. All neatly removed by the doe. I am guessing that the first kindling was stressful on her as it was not a normal birth and when she kindled the second time she was overly diligent with her cleaning of her living kits.

She is not my biggest doe, nor the most productive, nor the best temperament and this compounds the matter. Has anyone experienced this type of issue in a doe, and what did you decide to do about it? Right now I am leaning towards letting her wean her kits, which, if they survive, will all become delicious meals themselves, and then culling her as well.

As you may tell I am not overly sentimental and these are not pet rabbits. However, when the husband sees the little earless ones he is going to have a fit.

 

[BusterHill]

Personally I agree with you. If I had a doe consistently mutilating their young, I dont think i could bear trying again, although id personally try to sell her has a BIRTH proven doe, at a discount for not raising kits.... In this case id start advertising now, and if no takers by weaning then she would go in the freezer, esp sinc her personality isnt the best... if they are sweet i give many more chances

 

[Zass]

I'd never, ever consider selling a doe that bad.

If she were mine, I'd try to let her raise the kits to butchering size and cull them all.

One strike is all it takes around here, but for me strikes don't have to be failed litters.
An unfriendly temperament is a strike, and so is annoying stupidity, being overly high strung, not growing fast as I like, faults like white spots and white toes(I don't even want these in my mutts), a body I don't like, not producing the colors I want, bearing a small litter, etc, etc.

Too many good rabbits to choose from and not enough cages for them all, it helps me narrow down who to keep.

 

[akane]

Definitely wouldn't put her on someone else. Maybe with full disclosure of what she's done but then no one is going to take her. Probably best if these litter survives to butcher the whole lot of them. I wouldn't continue that doe's line. Even if you breed her again with a successful litter I would never keep one of her offspring for breeding.

 

[ladysown]

don't sell without full disclosure.. some folks like to take a chance.

BUT three strikes is your normal rule.

1. not productive
2. went off feed
3. first litter dead (that could simply be first litter fail BUT.. and this is where I draw lines... if EVERY OTHER doe is succeeding first time out the box, why would use excuse this one??).
4. second litter.. one dead, rest missing body parts...
5. poor temperament
6. insufficient size

Seems like multiple strikes to me at this point.

 

[Schipperkesue]

No worries, I would never sell her...not even as a pet. Not that she has a nasty temperament (not to me, anyway) but she is not as friendly as I would like. I am sure she will be delicious!

Her second try was to see if perhaps the previous problems were due to the week long kindling time, and a normal litter would change her behaviour, but no.

They will all become dinner. This has never happened to me before and I was wondering how common it might be.

 

[akane]

I actually haven't heard of any proven cases of does eating live kits completely. A few do think that's what happened to some or all of a litter but many never saw the kits alive before the doe started eating them. Occasionally there's the odd kit that gets injured either from cleaning or from a stuck kit that had to be pulled by the doe but not usually an entire litter. More often multiple injured kits is from rodents but if you've got no issue with other litters then it is likely to be the doe.

 

[Mosherd1]

I ha a doe a few years ago eat the ears off or "trim" all of her kits ears. It was her first litter. All litters after that all grew up with ears with no similar problems. It was weird though to see an 8 week old rabbit with no ears at all!
-Dave

 

[Schipperkesue]

Well, this one has eaten half of a kit several times. I don't know if they were dead to begin with though. They were definitely dead at the half eaten point.

The remainders in this litter will be earless and tailless. She still has 4 and they appear to be doing well in spite of the bloodshed.

 

[grumpy]

She's a waste of cage space. If you could foster her kits to another, she'd be
in the freezer by noon. With trimmed ears, the fostered kits would be easy
to see.

You're lenient............very lenient.

grumpy.

 

[Dood]

:yeahthat: Thankfully I've never experienced cannibalism in my rabbits but when I had colonies of feeder mice at the first sign of meat eating the whole group (usually a male and 3 or 4 females) was dispatched and a i made a note to keep an eye on the bloodline in other groups

 

[Comet007]

If I had that rabbit I would also try to foster those kits out and cull the doe - I just couldn't handle the eaten kits! Both of our first timer does (NZ's) just had litters last month, one had a single stillborn and the other had two, plus one she thought was dead and threw in that pile. Even those stillborn kits were almost completely cleaned of blood before the does put them in the reject pile, but none of their parts were chewed at all.

We do have one kit in our current litters who has one ear that the very tip was sheared off, but it happened at about 2 1/2 weeks. That's when the kits first got out of their 8" high nest box and started pestering the does for extra nursing time. :lol: Both of our does seemed to be looking at the kits like they had never seen them before! I think that the doe nipped at one of the babies and that's how the ear happened, so I am chalking it up to an oops. Now they know what a kit looks like out of the nest box, I expect that to never happen again, and in fact the does let the babies sit on their heads and backs!

Also, I definitely wouldn't breed any of the kits, just eat them for dinner. Just one newbie's take on it, I hope I never experience this!

Personally, now that I've seen our newbie does have 11 & 12 kits in their first litters with just a few stillborn, I don't think I will ever really be pleased with less! We also only want good temperaments - not just that they're not mean, but actually friendly and with good personalities. We're measuring our existing does and the kits that we will hold back for:

Size
Body type
Temperament
Mothering skills
litter sizes
kit weight at 8 weeks
percentage weaned
health issues for doe or her kits

Any negatives in these areas would be a strike in my book. Also, we want does who don't fuss when they are picked up and handled! I know this is a picky list, but we will only have 9 holes total, and there's no room for rabbits that aren't fun to work with! :roll:

Also, for any kits we will be holding back, I don't believe we will hold back any kits who needed supplemental feeding or other special needs while they are growing out.

 

[faiththequeen]

:dinner: Yep.

 

[michaels4gardens]

She's a waste of cage space. If you could foster her kits to another, she'd be
in the freezer by noon. With trimmed ears, the fostered kits would be easy
to see.

You're lenient............very lenient.

grumpy.

I agree with Grumpy...

 

[3mina]

I'm dealing with a doe that ate a ten day old kit right now and if I had'nt just rebred her she'd be heading to the freezer as soon as this litter was weaned. I've pulled the box and I'll be keeping a very close eye on her when the kits are ready to leave the nest.