Well, crap crap!

[sommrluv]

LOL

That's how I felt yesterday. Backstory: I have two moms who gave birth about 12 hours apart 4 weeks ago as of this past Tuesday. One of the mothers refused to nurse (she would let them suckle for literally milliseconds, would grunt and jump out, stomp on them) and I ended up moving the eight in with the other mom, and bringing the kits to the 'bad' mom to nurse in the early morning. This was much better because I think she was really uncomfortable, and eager to be in there for about 2 minutes solid. She stopped nursing a few days shy of the three week mark.

We have bred both mothers a couple days past the 2 week age on their kits. I know that seems close together, but we're going away and will be away a large part of next month, and I know I"m going to give them the majority of the winter "off" until I know for sure how they handle the temperatures in the workshop. So they should have off until March and I figured that would be a justifiable break and reason to get another litter in.

Well, the bad mom has been looking VERY fat lately. I caught her making a nest a couple days ago so I popped a nest box in there, thinking she might just live with it a couple of weeks.


Guess who had kits last night?? I'm dumbfounded. The buck used to be next to her, but they were easily 10 inches apart. My husband said that when I was having issues with the bad mom, and her scratching and biting when I was first checking the kits, that I popped her into a neighbors cage to keep her off me. I asked him...are you sure that wasn't you? He conceded it might have been him.


So...how bad is this? She's not my favorite rabbit, but I don't want her to be suffering or abused in any way either. Her kits (just two) are terribly small and easily half the size at birth of the other four she had previously. One looks like it has a piece of umbilical cord attached to it..or something like umbilical cord. DH thinks there were three last evening, so one possibly might have died. I checked the box all over. She didn't really make a nest but pulled a boatload of fur and they are warm.
We actually interrupted her labor and there seemed to be a bit more blood than last time. It was all over her feet.

So basically my two big questions...should I be giving her a supplement of some type? We feed a complete feed, hay, greens, and a little calf manna again now. Anything else?

I'm also committed to let her be with these babies. If she fails, she fails, no intervention. (we'll see how long I stick to this).

My second question...she took to her breeding (apparently when she was two weeks pregnant) extremely eager, the buck covered her many times in the twice she was put in over the 24 hour period. She was a HAPPY camper the whole time. From what I've read/been told, usually a doe at 14 days will not accept a buck. And if she does, it's really dangerous. Will she have kits again in two weeks? Would she have just miscarried during labor?

 

[ladysown]

Time will tell if she took or not. I would not intervene with these two littles particularly knowing that she was bred two weeks later again. what you are feeding should be sufficient.

 

[MaggieJ]

I agree with Ladysown. Just continue as usual and let nature take its course. She may well kindle again in two weeks time. It's not a desirable situation, but it needn't be considered a disaster either.

 

[sommrluv]

Please tell me you all had a learning curve as well. LOL

 

[akane]

If she actually got pregnant twice 2 weeks apart it's unlikely you will see a second set of kits. When a doe goes in to labor all kits are pushed out. You normally get a litter of fully developped kits and a litter of premature kits which often die.

As long as they are holding condition I let mine breed back to back in colony with a month or 2 break here and there. They do not seem to suffer for it. Some of them are so eager to breed again after a litter they'll go around teasing and humping the bucks. One of them gets highly annoying to the point I kept throwing her in with bucks just to get her to stop being a pest toward the other rabbits, us, and the bucks that were on the other side of the divider.

 

[MaggieJ]

Put it this way... If you don't get the learning curve and everything goes tickety-boo for the first while, chances are that you'll get slammed with something down the road a way, just when you started to feel as though you know what you're doing.

 

[sommrluv]

All of you have made me feel better.

I went to upload pictures but they are all too large for the site so I'll upload them to my photo host and put them up here later. <br /><br />__________ Tue Oct 11, 2011 12:06 pm __________<br /><br />She's not feeding them. ARGH.

 

[MaggieJ]

Has her milk come in? Sometimes it will be delayed. The the urge to nurse is increased by the pressure in the teats, but new bunny moms can be kind of clueless. I've heard that it sometimes helps to hold her above them in the nestbox so they can get a start.

Edited to add:
Are you sure she is not feeding them? I'm surprised they have survived this long if she is not feeding them. You won't usually see it happen... Most does hop in and nurse for just a very few minutes, usually just before dawn and/or after dark. Take a look at the pictures in this thread and then look at the kits' bellies.
fed-vs-unfed-kit-pictures-t3052.html

 

[sommrluv]

This is her third litter, second with us. I did hold her over them today (oh, I'm helpless) I've never seen kits that wrinkled before in my life. The one could barely move but he suckled well.

 

[akane]

They'll last 3 or 4 days without eating but long term health problems have occurred on the ones we saved who went a long time without food. The ones I found in a bad nest recently probably made near a week on only about 2 feedings. They do get too weak to suck though and they die in the next 24-48hrs after that depending just how patient you are trying to get food down them and how warm they stay. They start to produce less and less body heat. If the entire litter is starving they often die of cold earlier than they would have with just starvation. You can keep them alive another day with a heating pad or blanket but I've found it pointless once they stop sucking. When they get that weak it's near impossible to get enough food down them to make them recover.

If they are still wiggling and drinking you can save them but preferably you need to get actual rabbit milk down them at least once a day and if they don't still look round 12-14hrs later they might need supplemented. Formula and milk replacers aren't enough by themselves to turn them around when they've gone that long but can help them build energy between feedings until they recover enough to survive on some type of formula. I have saved a few really weak ones by feeding them a small amount, putting them on a heat pad in the nest box, and then feeding them again an hour later. They drink a lot better with a little food and heat to keep them more active.

Most of the time if I don't have a doe to feed them and they are less than a week old I just put them down. I ended up doing that with several litters born in July because the does must have been under too much stress from the heat to produce milk. It's a lot of effort to bring them back after several days without food and some never manage to grow in to normal adults. I've got a 1lb 8week old out of 8-10lb rabbits running around the colony because she didn't get enough food for a week and stunted. No idea what I'm going to do with her now.