New to forum

meerskat · Nov 30, 2012

Hi. I'm a first timer. I have two 6 month old bunnies and a surprise new litter of three 2 week old kits! HELP!

woahlookitsme · Nov 30, 2012

Welcome to the forum! Well at 2 weeks they are past most of the highlights of baby life. Mom will start to wean them off milk at 3-4 wks of age and they will start nibbling on pellets and hay. Best not to feed any veggies until they are 6months of age. Timothy hay is fine for them and so Is alfalfa. People usually separate babies from mom at 8-12 weeks old. Mom will usually let you know by becoming super agitated towards them if she doesn't want them around anymore. More seasoned does are able to convey this pretty easily. First timers are more subtle and some just never care at all. Let me know if you have any questions and you can always post them in the rabbitry thread

Imbrium · Nov 30, 2012

welcome to RO! I take it you got a visit from the "gender change fairy" after bringing home two bunns you thought were the same sex? ><

definitely don't sell/give away the babies any earlier than 8 weeks... if mom is absolutely fed up with them and starts to bully them, they could be separated from her at 6-7 weeks if it's truly necessary but should still be kept together and not rehomed until 8 weeks. by 12 weeks, any remaining kits should be separated by gender as it's possible for males to start becoming sexually mature by that age.

like woahlookitsme said, they'll start nibbling on mom's food before they're fully weaned and you should try to avoid letting them snag any of her veggies (if they do get a nibble here and there, it's not a big deal - just don't let them scarf down a whole bunch).

House Rabbit Society recommends a minimum of 12 weeks before you start gradually introducing veggies (which is when I started with mine)... some people feel it's better to wait until 5-6 months. it's up to you when to introduce veggies (if you have them that long), but there's no harm in waiting until 5-6 mos if you'd prefer.

I don't know if you've been touching/handling them at all... if you haven't, you should definitely start. unlike some animals, rabbits won't abandon their young because a human touches them (they often even seem proud to have their babies handled - like "check out this cool thing I did!") so it's safe to handle them from the day they're born and get them accustomed to humans.

if you plan to try to bond the parents together (which I'm guessing was the original plan?), now would be a good time to get the male neutered - it can take up to 6-8 weeks for his hormones to be totally gone AND for him to no long be able to impregnate a female. once the babies are weaned, you can get mom spayed (it only takes about a month for hormones to be totally gone in females). after they're both fixed and hormone-free, you can work on bonding them.

great sites on bonding:
http://www.cottontails-rescue.org.uk/matchups.asp
http://www.rabbitnetwork.org/articles/bond.shtml

you need to check on mom if dad was in the cage with her at any point after she gave birth, as it's possible for them to get pregnant again pretty much immediately - gently palpate (touch or probe) the lower abdomen using your thumb and forefinger on the rabbit's right side... feel for marble-sized bumps in the lower half of the abdomen, at shallow to mid-depth. if you feel one or more, the doe is pregnant.

if you suspect she's pregnant again, I recommend calling up a rabbit-savvy vet (not all vets willing to treat rabbits are truly rabbit-savvy, btw!)... if you need to find one, check out our library here - http://rabbitsonline.net/view_forum.php?id=9 ... and asking the vet if it's possible to have an emergency spay performed on a doe that's currently nursing kits. an emergency spay can be done up until around 2-2.5 weeks into a pregnancy, iirc, and will prevent the second litter from being born since the uterus is removed during a spay. (I know with cats, an emergency spay can be performed even if the mom is nursing but I'm not sure if that's also the case with rabbits.)

if she's pregnant again, I wouldn't consider an emergency spay a "must" since the first litter is only three kits... but still, back-to-back pregnancies and nursing two litters at once are a strain on the mother's body so I think it's definitely worth thinking about. (plus litters can be as big as 12 kits so you could potentially be stuck with as many as 15 rabbits to rehome if she gives birth again)

if you have any more questions about the babies, feel free to ask in the rabbitry and show room area (http://rabbitsonline.net/view_forum.php?id=8 ) - we have many experienced breeders lurking around who'd be happy to help you out