Nymphadora
Well-known member
We have finally begun what my family sees as the “trial by fire” of rabbit keeping!
Last weekend I picked up two absolutely gorgeous Rex does from a breeder friend of mine. One’s a castor, the other is opal. I decided early on that those were the colors I’d aim for in my barn, and my friend was super generous in giving me two of her brood does. :in_love:
Now, here is where the trial by fire comes in. Because I will not have a buck for a while (waiting on some litters in my friend group to grow up a bit), the castor doe was bred so I would have babies while I waited for a buck of my own. Hehe, dear Judy (castor doe) is due this coming Tuesday! I made her a sturdy nestbox, and now we are in the final few days of waiting and watching. I’m so excited I can barely contain it!
Now, I realize that this hardly seems to be a “fire”… after all, I have several days (just over a week from when I picked them up) to get things ready for these babies. Ha. Well. Miss Jane (opal doe) had some hitchhikers due to an unforeseen rendezvous with one of the bucks in my friends’ barn… two little kits, just 5 days old when I picked them all up. Normally we wouldn’t have moved such young kits, but I live close enough and all of my equipment is pretty much from my friend’s barn… so the smells shouldn’t be all that new. Jane also has a much friendlier temperament, of the two ladies, so she’s settled pretty quickly (Judy gave us the stink eye the first day, and only comes to the front of the cage if you have food for her now).
The popples are doing well (just over a week old now). I check them twice a day, before and after work. I think one of the twins (they’re both black otters… I haven’t named them, probably won’t in the long run, so they’ll just be the twins) was starting to open an eye this morning! For the past few days I didn’t feel like they were growing that much, but this morning made me feel like they were growing just fine. They’re always warm and have round little bellies (maybe not engorged, but definitely not skinny). They’re also moving around in the nest box a bit more than usual as of this morning… DH has been unobtrusively checking on our girls and the wee ones every couple hours as he’s working in the barn.
Oh, and we ended up not setting them up in the big barn, after all. We’ve come up with a solution to protect the concrete in the fenced off patio, and the girls are happy with the arrangements we’ve made (at least they seem to be settling in alright). We’ve been doing a ton of work in the barn, and it’s really terribly noisy and smelly (burnt wood from a table saw that wasn’t cutting properly… fixed for now, but still unpleasant). We may move them into the barn in future, but for now this arrangement works well for us. And I can check on the girls before going to work (DH insists he gets to feed them in the mornings, though… sweetheart). :grin:
So… there are finally rabbits for me to fawn over. We’ve been giving them some more space this past week to settle in and feel more at home, but I can’t wait to snuggle with my little buns every evening after work in the future!
:bunnyhop:
Last weekend I picked up two absolutely gorgeous Rex does from a breeder friend of mine. One’s a castor, the other is opal. I decided early on that those were the colors I’d aim for in my barn, and my friend was super generous in giving me two of her brood does. :in_love:
Now, here is where the trial by fire comes in. Because I will not have a buck for a while (waiting on some litters in my friend group to grow up a bit), the castor doe was bred so I would have babies while I waited for a buck of my own. Hehe, dear Judy (castor doe) is due this coming Tuesday! I made her a sturdy nestbox, and now we are in the final few days of waiting and watching. I’m so excited I can barely contain it!
Now, I realize that this hardly seems to be a “fire”… after all, I have several days (just over a week from when I picked them up) to get things ready for these babies. Ha. Well. Miss Jane (opal doe) had some hitchhikers due to an unforeseen rendezvous with one of the bucks in my friends’ barn… two little kits, just 5 days old when I picked them all up. Normally we wouldn’t have moved such young kits, but I live close enough and all of my equipment is pretty much from my friend’s barn… so the smells shouldn’t be all that new. Jane also has a much friendlier temperament, of the two ladies, so she’s settled pretty quickly (Judy gave us the stink eye the first day, and only comes to the front of the cage if you have food for her now).
The popples are doing well (just over a week old now). I check them twice a day, before and after work. I think one of the twins (they’re both black otters… I haven’t named them, probably won’t in the long run, so they’ll just be the twins) was starting to open an eye this morning! For the past few days I didn’t feel like they were growing that much, but this morning made me feel like they were growing just fine. They’re always warm and have round little bellies (maybe not engorged, but definitely not skinny). They’re also moving around in the nest box a bit more than usual as of this morning… DH has been unobtrusively checking on our girls and the wee ones every couple hours as he’s working in the barn.
Oh, and we ended up not setting them up in the big barn, after all. We’ve come up with a solution to protect the concrete in the fenced off patio, and the girls are happy with the arrangements we’ve made (at least they seem to be settling in alright). We’ve been doing a ton of work in the barn, and it’s really terribly noisy and smelly (burnt wood from a table saw that wasn’t cutting properly… fixed for now, but still unpleasant). We may move them into the barn in future, but for now this arrangement works well for us. And I can check on the girls before going to work (DH insists he gets to feed them in the mornings, though… sweetheart). :grin:
So… there are finally rabbits for me to fawn over. We’ve been giving them some more space this past week to settle in and feel more at home, but I can’t wait to snuggle with my little buns every evening after work in the future!
:bunnyhop:
