Litter – Day 7 (already!)

Cold and rainy today.  Did I mention cold and rainy?  It’s currently 36F out, with a ton more rain coming.   Yesterday it rained all day too.  In fact, I saw geese swimming in a farmer’s field on the drive home.  (Looked more like a cranberry bog than a cornfield!)  I’ve learned some unfortunate facts about the greenhouse – mostly revolving around the fact that  it’s not water-tight.  At all.  One of the seams – about an inch in from all sides – leaks water.  The rabbits are all >1″ off of the walls, plus they’re covered -so the important thing is they’ve stayed dry (adults included).  Just means EVERYTHING I had out on my table is soaked.  Thankfully the food is covered, etc – but I might be out of luck on the hay.  (And I’m DEFINITELY out a bag of wood shavings, haha.)  They hay is wet on some sides about an inch deep,  but with another 2-3 days of rain coming,  I don’t have any sunny days to pull it apart and set it out to dry.  Thankfully, per an earlier post, it was a reasonably cheap bale.

So today I’m hoping to hit Farm & Fleet and see about a tarp.  May supplement over the top of the greenhouse, I’ll at least get one for my -next- bale of hay, and we’ll go from there!  (Live and learn, right?)

Onto the rabbits!

Snug, warm, and most importantly – DRY in their nest today!

They’re getting so fuzzy now!  What you can’t see is this one was peeing on my hand.  (Which seems to happen quite a bit.)

Misha, who was “patiently” waiting outside of the greenhouse for me.

She was also “patiently” waiting for me to take a picture of the little water-filled faux rabbit holes she and her brother have been so kind to place in our yard.  (They’re high energy dogs with a large yard, we kind of expect it.  Just need to fill in often!).

Litter – Day 6

Nothing much to report this morning.  Raining here, kind of damp and cool, but the greenhouse is nice and dry and the kits are snug.  It’s important – too much wetness can kill rabbits!  (Hence another reason why ventilation is important).  We still have all 8, no visible runts or anyone TOO far behind.

The full litter, snug in their nest.

One of the squirmy ones pulled out for a personal photo.  Can’t wait for their eyes to open up!

Litter – Day 5

Day 5 now!  Their tummies are still nice and round (so Mom is definitely feeding them), they’re getting bigger, and definitely starting to get some more fur.   In only another 5 – 7 days, their eyes will start to  open.   Our other doe has her nest box in now (In case you’re wondering, dimensions are 18″ long, 10″ wide, 10″ tall with one side cut shorter for her to jump in).  Mama Bunny is eating like crazy, she’d get a scoop and a half (with a little bit of oats) before – and would always have some left over.  Now she’s getting 2.5 scoops plus oats, carrots, spinach, and other little green bits – (and of course all-they-can-eat hay), and definitely demolishing it.  Of course she is feeding 8 other bunnies, so I’d probably feel the same way.

 

The full litter this morning.

 

One of the kits.  They’re super squirmy when they’re woken up (probably think there’s milk to be had!), so I always have fun taking about 5 pictures of them at all different angles.  Haha!

 

This is the other doe.  I got the nest box in last night, if she’s due she should have them Wednesday night or so.  If she’s not, she just got a free month off and a box full of hay to play in!

Litter – Day 4

Went out this morning, we still have 8 and they’re all doing well!

One of the babies.  They’re starting to get more white – which means their fur is coming in!

Shot of the litter in the nest.  They’re getting bigger, so they’re easier to see.

This is what the nest box looks like normally.  Keeps the babies hidden and snug.

Today mom went in and checked it out right away!

New Litter – Day 3!

They’re getting a little bigger and a little furrier.  Bellies are still nice and round, and no deaths so far.  Mama is doing a great job!

A shot of the litter.

Another shot of the litter.  I had them pulled out individually for a minute so I could look at each one.

And one individual!

First Litter!

Rabbits only need 31 days to give birth.  It definitely gives new meaning to “Breeding like rabbits”. I put the nest box in on day 26 or so, which might have been a little early.  (Still worked out)   Mama bunny had her first litter (in my care, she’s had 2 or 3 previously with her former owner) the night of April 3rd.  Rabbits “kindle” (give birth) during the night, so I woke up to find fur EVERYWHERE in the cage.  It kind of looked like a small “bunny bomb” had gone off.  She did such a good job making a nest for them I was worried she had eaten them or something – until I finally looked VERY closely and saw a tiny bit of movement in the box.   I gave her carrots and spinach to distract her, and pulled the nest out to take a look.  I thought maybe the litter was small?   Nope – she had 8!!

The pictures here are from day 2.  I wasn’t sure how to count gestation days exactly, so I didn’t travel out with my camera for day 1.  (oops!)   But I do open up the nest and check them every day – making sure the bellies are nice and round (She only feeds them once, maybe twice a day – which is normal) and looking for any that might have died.  So far so good, no stillborns and no deaths!

A shot of the bunnies in their nest.  Not the best picture, but it was cold and I didn’t want to keep it very open.

One of the babies.  They’re super squirmy, and tricky to get a decent picture of!

The Digs and Food (Part Duex)

Focused on the hutches – right now we’re going with a double-stack design.  We may eventually split these in half, have one layer, and have them open from the top.  Right now the side door works, but it makes for a lot of reaching in and trying to get the rabbits out. (Sometimes kicking, and they have sharp little claws)   Right now each hutch has a food dish with a hay rack cut in right above.  The plan is to have the hay bits drop into the food dish, which seems to work about 10% of the time.

I made the hutches myself, which made a very fun project to sit in front of Netflix.  I did some reading on the all-wire bottoms and I primarily reference a book called “Storey’s Guide to Raising Rabbits“.   I highly recommend it, it’s kind of my “Rabbit raising Bible”.  But back to the all-wire bottoms – the author’s long term opinion (as well as many others) is that the wire bottom is better for rabbits.  It doesn’t hurt their feet, and due to the set-up allows any excrement to pass right through.  Solid surfaces collect urine/feces and are far more likely to cause sores and problems.  So far, they’ve worked beautifully and the rabbits seem quite happy!

The hutch set-up.

Food is far cheaper than I expected.  A 50lb bag of pellets only runs about $12.  Pellets are the primary diet for rabbits – they have everything they need.  However, being chewers and serious herbivores – rabbits need lots of stuff TO chew as well as lots of fiber.  The best way to supplement that is with hay.   We started off buying packaged hay from the pet store, but it was pretty obscenely expensive.  So we switched instead to a bale of “Swamp Grass”, which so far seems to be doing the job very nicely.  Plus a bonus – it was only $5 for 50-60lbs.  I suspect it will last us through the summer at least.

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The Rabbits

This is my first “Mama Rabbit”.  Her nest box is in the background – it’s made of the same wire mesh that the floor is, lined with cardboard, then stuffed with wood shavings and hay.

This is the other doe.  I’m hoping she’s pregnant, but the only way to really tell is to palpate. The trouble is, that takes a lot of practice – and I’m definitely new at it.  So I -think- she is, but we’ll really find out this week!

 

And finally – this is the buck.  He’s looking small-ish compared to the other two, so I’m stepping up his feed a bit.

The Digs

This is the Greenhouse we got to keep our rabbits. Nothing fancy, but keeps it nicer during the day and the wind off of them at night!  We have digital weather thermometer in the house that tells us what the temperature is in the greenhouse.  Heat is one of the rabbit killers, so we’re watching it very carefully.  During the summer, we’ll have frozen bottles of water to put in with them and lots of ventilation as the greenhouse can open up on all sides.  We’ll adjust as we learn, and there’s always the failsafe of taking them indoors on super hot days.