Cheyenne Wants to be Mother!

[flemishwhite]

Background: For our two Flemmish baby sister rabbits, now over 5 months old, we have card board boxes in the house for them play with and chew on. They are house rabbits..they run free and are not caged.

Cheyenne built a birthing nest in one of the card board boxes. She lined it with oat hay she grabbed from the three litter boxes we have in the house. She did this at night and it was a big effort. She moved a lot of hay, mouthful at a mouthful, at a time. It was a big nest. But the next night, she found three tiny stuffed toy dogs in another room.. She carried them into her nest! She populated her nest with babies!

My wife now thinks that we should let Cheyenne have baby rabbits.. I know that having babies is important for rabbits, but I don't want the grief of having babies to get rid of not knowing if the people taking them are going to take care of them. My mother had a AKC pedigree Basset Hound and for a hobby she decided to have puppies for sale. After two litters she stopped and had the dog (Sally) neutered because she was too concerned that people wouldn't take care of the puppies. Same with me with the rabbits. My opinion is that of the general public that might buy/take a bunny for a pet, very few actually know how to take care of them. So plans are to have both neutered. Actually, since they are house rabbits, neutering will make things work out a lot better for us all living together.

 

[Ivythelionhead]

I personally would go for the neutering because like you said you do t k ow if they a re going to good homes plus it can be a lot of work having baby bunnies, let her build a best and fill it with stuffed toys it's not gonna hurt anybody but yea I'd go for nutering. Good luck whatever you decide and of course I'm no expert.

 

[Azerane]

You can't put rabbits on human terms, people sometimes want to have babies, but we're also hormonally driven to have babies. Rabbits are hormonally driven to have babies, they may feel the desire to mate (once again hormones) but I very much doubt they see the bigger picture which is the end result of that. The fact that she has built a nest does not mean that she wants to have babies, she's just listening to her instincts and her hormones are telling her she's pregnant when she's not and she's building a nest anyway because it's what pregnant does do right before they give birth.

If you breed her, you'll have to separate her from your other rabbit and keep them separate while she has the kits, nurses them and they grow to eight weeks before you can sell them. After that, there's no guarantee that she will get along with your other rabbit again. How are you going to get her pregnant? Can you trust the health of the rabbit she is bred with as rabbits can also carry STDs. What if the buck injures your doe? What if your doe injures the buck? Are you willing to accept that she may die giving birth? Where will you keep her and the kits? Will the kits be free roaming? Will you have them caged, then you will also need to cage your free roaming rabbit... What will you do if you can't re-home all of the kits? There's a lot of things you need to think about before just diving into something like that.

They're certainly old enough to get them desexed, do it now before the hormones really start to kick in some more and you might end up with two disagreeing females.

 

[Preitler]

Such false pregnancies are quite common with unaltered does, some also pull lots of fur, completly normal. You get used to that. But some does start to mark their territory when hormones run high.

They don't "want to have babies", it's when their hormones are triggered that's the resulting behaviour. Although, having kits, and lots of them in short time is what rabbits evolved for, that's in their genes. Of course, house bunnys are not supposed to live out that urge, that's fine, humans didn't evolve to sit in the office every day either

I have 3 does (4yo mother with 2yo and 1yo daughter) living together, no need to seperate them when one has kits, I seperate them just for about 2 days before and 2 days after kindling, just to give her some privacy until a nursing routine is established. In my experience they actually get along better when there are kits. But it is good when the mother has a somewhat secluded area for her and the nestbox (I use closed ones with just a hole to enter, that gets stuffed with hay by the mother for the first two weeks - no other doe touches that plug)
This are my experiences, but rabbits differ a lot, also their owners, so not everything I do is per se the right thing for others.

You sure don't want completly free roaming kits, it takes quite some time til they realize what a litterbox is for. And, of course, what to do with the kits? You can't keep them. No matter how sweet they are. And you'll need to seperate any bucks at 10-12 weeks.

Breeding rabbits isn't something you should do because you think the doe "wants" it, it's you who has all the work, costs, and responsibility.

 

[Aki]

Animals don't want to be parents, giving birth doesn't hold any meaning to them - they just react to hormones. It's especially true for rabbits - a doe barely spends a few minutes everyday with her kits, doesn't hesitate to kill them if she feels like it's necessary, and doesn't raise them the way a dog or a cat would. The fact that you own a giant breed also means that you'd have a large litter (you can have about 10 to 12 kits with a Flemish) and it's not easy to find a family for that kind of rabbits (except if you don't mind your babies becoming meat rabbits). Besides, your rabbit is a lot too young to have kits - if you did it now, she could die giving birth or panic when she has her babies and kill them all (it does happen pretty often with a first litter and a young doe and you might not like finding a gory mess of bloody babies' parts all around her nest one morning). Your rabbit's phantom pregnancy is just caused by the fact that she is a teenager and kept with another, also hormonal, rabbit. She doesn't want to be pregnant, she believes she is because of her hormones. I advise giving her parsley to avoid her producing milk - it sometimes happens and it can cause infections. Wait until the 'pregnancy' is over and then get her spayed quickly before it happens again (do not attempt to have her spayed during the phantom pregnancy, as it causes more blood to flow in the uterus which can increase the risks of hemorrhage). If you and your wife really feel like having a litter, do it because you want to and not 'for' your rabbit... have about 12 homes lined up for the kits because you might need them and wait at least seven months to do it. Also, be prepared to deal with a broken bond between your current duo- pregnant does are generally not very nice nor inclined to share their space.

 

[flemishwhite]

Thanks for all the very thoughtful sincere replies. Since some of you have more experience with bunnies and babies than me, it was good to read your opinions.

March 18, we've scheduled to have them neutered. Don't look forward to this.. Girls are in discomfort for a couple of days, even with pain killer medicine.

 

[Azerane]

No problem. Desexing can be a stressful and nerve-wracking time, but most seem to be pretty upbeat a day after. I imagine they'll be most upset about being confined as opposed to the pain they're in

 

[flemishwhite]

No problem. Desexing can be a stressful and nerve-wracking time, but most seem to be pretty upbeat a day after. I imagine they'll be most upset about being confined as opposed to the pain they're in

After we picked up Bunny in the late afternoon, she was very groggy. If I took her home she would hide underneath our bed and I wouldn't be able to get her for her pain medications. We checked into a Marriott Residence Inn. The rabbit could not crawl under the bed since it was boxed off. We could catch here easily for her pain meds. Our bed mattress had pleated skirt that reached down to the floor. Bunny slept (hide) beside us in our bed underneath the mattress skirt. She and my wife and me spent two nights in the Marriott, and with my wife all day long. We had a fresh litter box for her every day, so there was no soiling of the room.

Actually before neutering, we also spent another weekend in a Marriott Residence Inn with her. Our room had a ceiling to floor glass window overlooking the sidewalk outside the room . Bunny like to lay by the window all day long and watch people walk by...this was for two days. No fuss with the management..actually Bunny was 100% with her litter box habits for this hotel stay also.

 

[Aki]

It sounds like a good decision to me. I would tell you not to worry about the spaying, but that would be hypocritical of me considering how awful I've felt everytime I've left one of my bunnies at the vet for a neuter / spay. Honestly, the pain and the time your rabbits will take to get well depends on the rabbit and the vet. My vet did bandage my female and said to leave it like this for a week after the spay. From what I've gathered, it's an unusual technic but it did prevent my rabbit from eating her stitches. She did seem skittish for a couple of days afterwards but nothing terrible and she just didn't want anyone to touch her hindquarter for a few weeks (not even her husbunny when I put them back together after the stitches were removed). She looked awful when the bandages were removed with all the dead fur (and I think she tried to murder the vet when he did it) but it went without a hitch. Your rabbits are young, so removing the ovaries should suffice - it's a small comfort, but it means that the operation will be a lot lighter and less painful than if they had to remove the uterus...

 

[MaryAnne]

Flem, there's a pic in the meme thread for you, last one...go take a look.
MA