Baby Birthin' Time

A few hours old

The First Time Momma, annoyed that I'm messing with her babies

The female who was bred but apparently didn't "take"

A female who wouldn't be bred.  We are going to try and re-breed her

About a month ago we bred all of Eldest Daughters female rabbits and now they are having babies.  Two "kitted" on the same day.  And the third we bred seems like she didn't take, even though I know the male was successful.  Our fourth female wouldn't let the male breed her so we're trying again.

One of the females is apparently an absolute idiot because she had all her babies on the wire.  Three were dead before I could rescue them and I had to do emergency warm up treatment in the house to get the rest to survive.  All survived but we had to bring the mom into nurse them since they were so stressed.  Lucky for us she co-operated and fed them. Right now she has six babies, but one looks like a runt and probably wont make it.

The second female had a litter of eight!  This was her first litter and I was amazed to see that she not only made an excellent nest, but also had all her babies in the box and nursed them.  Most first time mom rabbits either have the babies on the wire or don't make a good enough nest and the babies die.  This mom seems to be doing really good.  Two babies look like they are either not getting enough to eat or are runts.  If I had a female who didn't have a large litter I would try to put them on her, but I don't.  Unfortunately with rabbits if a baby is a runt their is not much you can do.  Bottle feeding is almost impossible when they are this size.

I have to say that newborn rabbits are amazingly ugly.  They are heartbreakingly adorable after about a week, but at first they look like hairless rats.  Only a mom could love em.