What happened to these kits?

[Mama583]

I am just getting started in this so please excuse me if I don't use proper terms and I welcome any help you can give.

I have a trio of non related young New Zealands that are not quite ready to breed but also an adult trio from a family that had acquired them from a retiring rabbitry and decided they had too many. The does had each had one litter but no kits survived. So I bred them and each had a large litter. 11 and 10 kits. Each lost the runt so now 10 and 9. They are now about 3 wks old. One litter is beautiful. The other one has issues. The mama of this litter is sort of large and slender compared to the the other adults and her personality is not the best. She is a bit pushy but I don't think any of them were handled much. Some of her kits are fine but 2 of them have strange fur. The REW has very thin, wired, long fur and it seems abnormally larger than the others. The black and white one is very small amd frail and has rough fur and a large bald patch behind its neck. The REW was odd looking from the beginning. Is this maybe from line breeding? They are just being planned for meat purposes and I plan to replace the doe but I am curious if this is normal.
Thanks for any insight.

 

[RabbitsOfTheCreek]

Could you add pictures

 

[Mama583]

Could you add pictures

Oh sorry. I ment to.

 

[Mama583]

The REW is next to a normal kit. The other pic is of the little rough haired broken one with the bald patch.

 

[ladysown]

that white kit makes me think of the odd kits you can get with rex/angora crosses. Sometimes they outgrow it, sometimes you get them to eating size and enjoy them. the broken might be to barbering by mom or the other kits, or simply the same genetics causing the oddness of the white kit.

If it were me, I'd pull those two out at four weeks and raise them in a cage on their own. partly in a case of a particular form of rabbit-specific mites, or barbering going on. Partly because oddness should be pulled out for the safety of the herd. I'm a firm believer in taking a long-term view of the health and safety of my rabbitry.

You might want to grow them out just to satisfy my curiousity and get back to me.

My tendency though is always to cull sooner rather than later and feed anything "off or odd" to my cats.

 

[Mama583]

that white kit makes me think of the odd kits you can get with rex/angora crosses. Sometimes they outgrow it, sometimes you get them to eating size and enjoy them. the broken might be to barbering by mom or the other kits, or simply the same genetics causing the oddness of the white kit.

If it were me, I'd pull those two out at four weeks and raise them in a cage on their own. partly in a case of a particular form of rabbit-specific mites, or barbering going on. Partly because oddness should be pulled out for the safety of the herd. I'm a firm believer in taking a long-term view of the health and safety of my rabbitry.

You might want to grow them out just to satisfy my curiousity and get back to me.

My tendency though is always to cull sooner rather than later and feed anything "off or odd" to my cats.

Thank a bunch! They may not be full NZ. The folks I got them from didn't seem to have much information about them.

I do think the broken one may be getting bullied. It doesn't seem to be growing much. But I will post an update here later on if they make it. Thanks again

 

[Mama583]

that white kit makes me think of the odd kits you can get with rex/angora crosses. Sometimes they outgrow it, sometimes you get them to eating size and enjoy them. the broken might be to barbering by mom or the other kits, or simply the same genetics causing the oddness of the white kit.

If it were me, I'd pull those two out at four weeks and raise them in a cage on their own. partly in a case of a particular form of rabbit-specific mites, or barbering going on. Partly because oddness should be pulled out for the safety of the herd. I'm a firm believer in taking a long-term view of the health and safety of my rabbitry.

You might want to grow them out just to satisfy my curiousity and get back to me.

My tendency though is always to cull sooner rather than later and feed anything "off or odd" to my cats.

So here is the update. The small broken one passed away on it own. It didnt grow like the others. We finally culled the thin haired REW today. He was really friendly but we didn't want to use him for our meat and today he ended up with nasal discharge so I just went ahead. One pic is of his scaley skin. It has always been like that. He did eventually grow a bit of a mustache and some "boots." His mother has been culled as well...for several reasons.

 

[RabbitsOfTheCreek]

Wow he looks very bad

 

[Mama583]

Wow he looks very bad.

He was very strange looking. I feel like his head was misshapen as well but maybe just the thin hair threw me off.

 

[BuffBrahmaBantam]

That is a weird looking thing. I wonder if it was due to inbreeding. Good thing you culled him and the mom.

 

[Mama583]

That is a weird looking thing. I wonder if it was due to inbreeding. Good thing you culled him and the mom.

Possibly. I had another litter about the same time and it was much more friendly and all but the runt survived. This poor guys litter mates were different. Not as friendly as the others, 2 were short haired and 3 others, I think, passed away early on.

 

[ladysown]

I'd chalk that up a genetic issue twixt mom and dad OR that mom was carrying something latent and it affected the growth of the kits.

 

[eco2pia]

the scaly skin could be a form of dermatitis. We had mice that got that--genetic defect in the immune system increases liklihood of such things. It can also affect hair growth like that. The head to me looks normal, we are just used to fur.

 

[KelleyBee]

So here is the update. The small broken one passed away on it own. It didnt grow like the others. We finally culled the thin haired REW today. He was really friendly but we didn't want to use him for our meat and today he ended up with nasal discharge so I just went ahead. One pic is of his scaley skin. It has always been like that. He did eventually grow a bit of a mustache and some "boots." His mother has been culled as well...for several reasons.

I think you made the right choice, especially culling mom. That rew baby looked miserable. its best not to bring anymore into the world just to suffer and to not be able to fulfill it’s purpose. Mom obviously was dominantly carrying and passing on some unhealthy genetics.