NZminilops
Well-Known Member
I'll try and make this quick but it's a longish story.
I saw two baby rabbits for sale on a website. They were being advertised at 4 weeks old. I contacted them to ask why, the owner (Deb) explained the situation.
Mama rabbit was free range in their yard for a year or so, and large black wandering male came into yard. Not long after, mama rabbit gives birth on the lawn to 6 babies. Four are dead, two are alive. Doe and babies are transfered to hutch a day or so later. Doe starts getting aggressive towards babies, nipping them, refusing to feed them, charging at them, boxing them with front paws.
After talking with Deb a few times, I agreed to take the two babies. Before anyone gets too upset with me, I let her know they were much too young and we would try and leave them there for as long as the doe would tollerate them.
She called me yesterday and said much to her horror, there are 7 new babies in the hutch.
The older babies she says are weaned, eating by themselves fine, and she has no where else to stick them.
I'm feeling a wee bit helpless as I can't get out there uuntil Monday (it's Saturday here now) and I'm not exactly sure what to advise her to do in the mean time.
Any ideas? Would the older babies be ok to leave do you think? I have had a couple of bunnies at 5 weeks old who were fine, I'm just so anxious about doing the wrong thing. Debs attitude is a "hurry up and get them as I don't care for them that much" type thing. She even emailed saying things like not caring at all about the new babies, and she'll just leave it to nature to decide what happens :?.
Any advice for myself and her?
Oops! Edited to add pictures
. This is them at 3 weeks old. Any idea what colour the brownish grey one is?
I saw two baby rabbits for sale on a website. They were being advertised at 4 weeks old. I contacted them to ask why, the owner (Deb) explained the situation.
Mama rabbit was free range in their yard for a year or so, and large black wandering male came into yard. Not long after, mama rabbit gives birth on the lawn to 6 babies. Four are dead, two are alive. Doe and babies are transfered to hutch a day or so later. Doe starts getting aggressive towards babies, nipping them, refusing to feed them, charging at them, boxing them with front paws.
After talking with Deb a few times, I agreed to take the two babies. Before anyone gets too upset with me, I let her know they were much too young and we would try and leave them there for as long as the doe would tollerate them.
She called me yesterday and said much to her horror, there are 7 new babies in the hutch.
The older babies she says are weaned, eating by themselves fine, and she has no where else to stick them.
I'm feeling a wee bit helpless as I can't get out there uuntil Monday (it's Saturday here now) and I'm not exactly sure what to advise her to do in the mean time.
Any ideas? Would the older babies be ok to leave do you think? I have had a couple of bunnies at 5 weeks old who were fine, I'm just so anxious about doing the wrong thing. Debs attitude is a "hurry up and get them as I don't care for them that much" type thing. She even emailed saying things like not caring at all about the new babies, and she'll just leave it to nature to decide what happens :?.
Any advice for myself and her?
Oops! Edited to add pictures
. This is them at 3 weeks old. Any idea what colour the brownish grey one is?
