I apologize for the length but I'd GREATLY appreciate any advice you can give me!!!
If you don't want to read the whole thing I have bolded my main questions.
Me and my mom breed rabbits at my house to sell for pets (mostly mini-rex) and a couple days ago one of our does, Speckles, gave birth for the first time. Since it's her first time I was nervous and unfortunately I was right to be - but a big part of the problem was us.
We've never used actual nesting boxes - we let the rabbits build a nest in large mounds of hay. My reasoning for this has been 1: kits might get crushed against unyeilding sides of box during feeding or when mom jumps in/out and 2: with a box if kit falls out its stuck and can't get back but with just hay there's a chance it could burrow back. I think I might have to rethink our policies though after this.
All but one of the babes crawled out of the nest, out into the cage area and through the bars, falling to the floor. All but one of those died (the one that didn't crawled more than a dozen feet to a pile of hay and burrowed itself in! It'll be called Miracle if it lives). We've now secured the cage so they won't fall out anymore (beating ourselves up about not doing so before, but never imagined they'd go so far whilestill small enough to fit!)
Now or problem is this: we only have two kits left and they WON'T STAY IN THE NEST. They're either being pulled out by mom after feeding or are crawling out to get closer to the heater we have aimed at the cage. I'm REALLY torn about what I should do.
From what I can see Speckles IS taking care of them - she's cleaning them and they seem fed (tummies are round) but I'm worried...
Right now we've built a nest in the wire area (there's a rug) for them (where they keep ending up) and they seem to be actually finally staying put but I'm worried that Speckles might not feed them properly if they're not were she originally had them, though she definitely knows where they are...as I write this I've put them back in there original spot hoping she'll feed them while I'm gone... should I do that or not? Will a mother rabbit still feed the kits if they're moved?
We're also thinking of buying a nesting box, but will a rabbit use a nesting box if its been a few days since the kits were born? Especially since this is her first litter...
Our last option is possibly trying to foster them in with another litter a couple days older than these two. My mom's against it as she wants Speckle's to get experience. The foster mom is our oldest and most experienced doe (4-5 years old) but she already has five kits of her own. Plus there's no guarantee the fostering would go well - the one time we tried was with this same doe and she ended up attacking the foster kit (we got it out in time) but admittedly that time the kits were older and much farther apart in age from the foster. If we lose one more kit, we definitely will try to foster the last but how likely is it that a litter of two will die due to lack of warmth or other related problems? And how many babies can one doe (especially an older one) successfully raise?
That's the situation. Again sorry for how long this ended up being but I wanted to be detailed it the situation. Any help you can give would be GREATLY APPRECIATED!!
If you don't want to read the whole thing I have bolded my main questions.
Me and my mom breed rabbits at my house to sell for pets (mostly mini-rex) and a couple days ago one of our does, Speckles, gave birth for the first time. Since it's her first time I was nervous and unfortunately I was right to be - but a big part of the problem was us.
We've never used actual nesting boxes - we let the rabbits build a nest in large mounds of hay. My reasoning for this has been 1: kits might get crushed against unyeilding sides of box during feeding or when mom jumps in/out and 2: with a box if kit falls out its stuck and can't get back but with just hay there's a chance it could burrow back. I think I might have to rethink our policies though after this.
All but one of the babes crawled out of the nest, out into the cage area and through the bars, falling to the floor. All but one of those died (the one that didn't crawled more than a dozen feet to a pile of hay and burrowed itself in! It'll be called Miracle if it lives). We've now secured the cage so they won't fall out anymore (beating ourselves up about not doing so before, but never imagined they'd go so far whilestill small enough to fit!)
Now or problem is this: we only have two kits left and they WON'T STAY IN THE NEST. They're either being pulled out by mom after feeding or are crawling out to get closer to the heater we have aimed at the cage. I'm REALLY torn about what I should do.
From what I can see Speckles IS taking care of them - she's cleaning them and they seem fed (tummies are round) but I'm worried...
Right now we've built a nest in the wire area (there's a rug) for them (where they keep ending up) and they seem to be actually finally staying put but I'm worried that Speckles might not feed them properly if they're not were she originally had them, though she definitely knows where they are...as I write this I've put them back in there original spot hoping she'll feed them while I'm gone... should I do that or not? Will a mother rabbit still feed the kits if they're moved?
We're also thinking of buying a nesting box, but will a rabbit use a nesting box if its been a few days since the kits were born? Especially since this is her first litter...
Our last option is possibly trying to foster them in with another litter a couple days older than these two. My mom's against it as she wants Speckle's to get experience. The foster mom is our oldest and most experienced doe (4-5 years old) but she already has five kits of her own. Plus there's no guarantee the fostering would go well - the one time we tried was with this same doe and she ended up attacking the foster kit (we got it out in time) but admittedly that time the kits were older and much farther apart in age from the foster. If we lose one more kit, we definitely will try to foster the last but how likely is it that a litter of two will die due to lack of warmth or other related problems? And how many babies can one doe (especially an older one) successfully raise?
That's the situation. Again sorry for how long this ended up being but I wanted to be detailed it the situation. Any help you can give would be GREATLY APPRECIATED!!
