Post by Stacy on May 4, 2010 23:03:50 GMT -5
Well, about ... hmm... 34 or so days ago, we bought a pair of rabbits. The lady had them in cages..this is the boy cage, this is the girl cage. We took her word for it, took our two picks home. One seemingly purebred (looking) standard sized rex doe and one big white with black spots and a black streak going down his back buck. No hanky panky going on, but maybe we missed it, they were getting used to their new cage..whatever.
So anyway.. about a week later, the buck has hair all over the cage! What the heck??? So we decided to finally "check" our choices. First the rex. Girl. Then the buck. Girl. HUNH?!?! Great. Now we have no buck to fertilize our two girls so we can have meat rabbits! Fudge!
I told DH to be patient about his picks anyway, as the lady did have the black and white in the "buck" cage and there were a few fellows at least in there as they were doing the wild thing all over the place...so in just over a month, we SHOULD have a litter.
We separated the does, because the hair we saw in the cage was from them fighting. Rex doe got a nice big cage. A week later, she also gave us five babies. Woohoo! Free litter! They are doing great and their eyes just opened up over the last week or so.
Now.. today.. yup.. right on schedule.. black and white doe gives birth.. to 14 BABIES! 14!!! They are good sized too...She did have them in the nest box, but she sure didn't pull much hair. Mike threw in soft hay to cover them with. Mom was eating some of it. Big surprise.
Is she going to possibly be able to raise that many babies?? Or are we going to start finding them dead till she gets down to a more reasonable amount? Since she didn't pull hair, what do you think we can expect out of her mothering skills? She did jump into the box to rearrange the hay when we put it in as soon as we walked far enough away for her to be comfortable.
We've tried ..and failed!..with meat type rabbits before. I sure hope we end up with something!
Thanks!
So anyway.. about a week later, the buck has hair all over the cage! What the heck??? So we decided to finally "check" our choices. First the rex. Girl. Then the buck. Girl. HUNH?!?! Great. Now we have no buck to fertilize our two girls so we can have meat rabbits! Fudge!
I told DH to be patient about his picks anyway, as the lady did have the black and white in the "buck" cage and there were a few fellows at least in there as they were doing the wild thing all over the place...so in just over a month, we SHOULD have a litter.
We separated the does, because the hair we saw in the cage was from them fighting. Rex doe got a nice big cage. A week later, she also gave us five babies. Woohoo! Free litter! They are doing great and their eyes just opened up over the last week or so.
Now.. today.. yup.. right on schedule.. black and white doe gives birth.. to 14 BABIES! 14!!! They are good sized too...She did have them in the nest box, but she sure didn't pull much hair. Mike threw in soft hay to cover them with. Mom was eating some of it. Big surprise.
Is she going to possibly be able to raise that many babies?? Or are we going to start finding them dead till she gets down to a more reasonable amount? Since she didn't pull hair, what do you think we can expect out of her mothering skills? She did jump into the box to rearrange the hay when we put it in as soon as we walked far enough away for her to be comfortable.
We've tried ..and failed!..with meat type rabbits before. I sure hope we end up with something!
Thanks!