# Stuck kits?



## AmberLops (Apr 27, 2019)

Hi everyone!
I'm posting this because I don't have any experience with stuck kits....or breeding Lionheads.
So yesterday my Lionhead doe was due to have her first litter (she's 7 months old) and I was keeping an eye on her, thinking she'd have her kits later in the night but I went to check on her again at noon and she was laying in her cage with a kit stuck and only half its body hanging out.
I got some oil, lubed up the baby and it took a while to get it out but of course it was dead.
The next kit she had was dead also but she birthed it just fine. She started having contractions again but the third baby wouldn't budge. Finally it's back feet came out and I lubed it up and that one took about 30 minutes to get out. Also, the babies were underdeveloped even though she did have a full term pregnancy.
The buck I bred her to was a very small (2lb) lionhead so I can't figure out why she had so much trouble!
Do you think if I bred her again the same thing would happen?
Are there some does that just can't be bred without getting stuck kits?
I'm used to my Holland Lops but thought i'd try Lionheads and this was my first lionhead breeding.


----------



## B&B Happy goats (Apr 27, 2019)

I don't  know what to say, like you....never had it happen , really sorry that you had to experience  this and loose some kits


----------



## AmberLops (Apr 27, 2019)

B&B Happy goats said:


> I don't  know what to say, like you....never had it happen , really sorry that you had to experience  this and loose some kits


Thank you  I'm just glad my doe is okay and it didn't happen while I was at work.
I'm thinking of breeding her to my Netherland Dwarf buck...not many rabbits are smaller than him!


----------



## promiseacres (Apr 28, 2019)

Lion heads carry the dwarf gene if I think. That may be the problem rather than actually a size problem. @Bunnylady do you have any insight?


----------



## Bunnylady (Apr 28, 2019)

The Holland Lop is a dwarf breed as well.

It's funny - just yesterday, I had a Dwarf doe go two days past her due date, and deliver two stillborn peanuts. They were about the size of normal, full-term kits, but they had the typical weird-looking heads and undersized back legs (I assume the extra two days' gestation accounts for them being bigger than peanuts usually are). People often talk like you get one baby in a litter of four being born a peanut, but actually, every baby conceived in a true-dwarf-to-true-dwarf breeding has one chance in four; it's like flipping two coins at the same time and both coming up "tails." This time, both babies lost the toss; I have heard of (but never experienced) litters of as many as 4 or 5 with all of them peanuts. 

But yeah, I was thinking this could be a case of all of the babies being peanuts; that would account for them looking underdeveloped. That wouldn't explain them getting stuck, though. While I have occasionally had to help a doe deliver a kit, with mine, they were always grossly oversized kits. With three in a litter kindled on their due date, I wouldn't think they'd be all that big.

I have heard of does that, for one reason or another, don't labor properly. One breeder I knew told me that English Angoras are notorious for it; they often wind up delivering a litter over the course of days rather than mere minutes (never having worked with the breed, I have only her word to go on for this).  Her solution was Oxytocin. Vets may be keeping a tighter control on such things now, but she had a vet who trusted her to know when and how to use the stuff, and let her have a bottle. While I have heard of dog breeds that can't give birth without a Cesarean, it all seems a bit too much for me; I would consider being able to give birth and raise the litter as being a requirement for keeping a place in the gene pool.


----------



## AmberLops (Apr 28, 2019)

Bunnylady said:


> The Holland Lop is a dwarf breed as well.
> 
> It's funny - just yesterday, I had a Dwarf doe go two days past her due date, and deliver two stillborn peanuts. They were about the size of normal, full-term kits, but they had the typical weird-looking heads and undersized back legs (I assume the extra two days' gestation accounts for them being bigger than peanuts usually are). People often talk like you get one baby in a litter of four being born a peanut, but actually, every baby conceived in a true-dwarf-to-true-dwarf breeding has one chance in four; it's like flipping two coins at the same time and both coming up "tails." This time, both babies lost the toss; I have heard of (but never experienced) litters of as many as 4 or 5 with all of them peanuts.
> 
> ...


I'm sorry about your babies!
My sister has Netherland dwarfs and I was thinking about taking her to my sister's place to have her bred by one of her bucks. She has a super small buck and I think it's worth trying. If she can't have his kits without getting stuck then i'll have to find her a new home. She's just not that small so I don't know what happened and the buck I bred her to was also small! And what I've read about stuck kits is exactly what you said...oversized kits! But hers looked underdeveloped and small.
And I know that Hollands are a dwarf breed but I've never had problems with stuck kits with them...only peanuts.
My sister has the BUDs and that seems to help with the peanuts. She used to have mostly true dwarf does but then she got some BUDs and it works out so much better...she breeds them to tiny bucks.
They still give some true dwarfs and they have less peanuts. 
And she has some gorgeous rabbits!


----------



## Bunnylady (Apr 28, 2019)

AmberLops said:


> They still give some true dwarfs and they have less peanuts.



If the BUD's are false dwarfs, they_ can't _have peanuts, since they don't have a dwarfing gene to pass on to their offspring. Either your sister is breeding some rabbits that are oversized true dwarfs (it can happen!) or she is getting babies with some problem other than dwarfism.

I appreciate the sympathy. Trying to decide what to do about the doe - do I re-breed (that'll have her due date nearly June, and the temps will be pretty high by then) or do I just write her off? She's a couple of years old; so may not be viable much longer.

The Mini Rex that she was teamed with had 7, so she'd need another "partner" or two . . . .

But just because they are almost too cute for words, here are the two "over achievers" litters (two weeks old, and all still with us!)


----------



## AmberLops (Apr 28, 2019)

Aww they're all so beautiful!!! 
I'm a huge fan of agouti so i'm loving the bottom group! Is that a chocolate chestnut on the far right?!
I think you should rebreed her...but that's just my opinion. I think it's worth trying one more time  And who knows? Maybe she'll give you a normal litter one last time!
About my sister's rabbits...can't a BUD bred to a true dwarf buck still have peanuts?


----------



## Bunnylady (Apr 28, 2019)

AmberLops said:


> I'm a huge fan of agouti so i'm loving the bottom group! Is that a chocolate chestnut on the far right?!



Yes, good eye! I don't know why my phone made the two Chestnuts look different shades; they aren't. From left to right, that litter is: Steeled Otter, Chocolate Otter, Chestnut, Steel, Chestnut, and Cinnamon (Chocolate Agouti). I have a buck that I felt pretty sure is a Steeled Otter, that I bred to a Chestnut doe, hoping that I'd get a Steel to confirm my hunch (of course, it's a false dwarf buck . . . also of course, BB2K has totally fallen in love with him . . . so we have given the 'Bun of Steel' the 'Man of Steel's' birth name, Kal El). The chocolate was a total surprise, but I'm loving it!




AmberLops said:


> About my sister's rabbits...can't a BUD bred to a true dwarf buck still have peanuts?



The thing that makes a Big Ugly Doe "big' and "ugly" is that she lacks the dwarfing gene. Without the dwarfing gene (Dw), her face is longer, her ears are longer, her legs and back are a bit longer. With the longer proportions, the false dwarf doe is probably a bit over the maximum weight for her breed, but that isn't a "given;" you can get true dwarfs that go a bit over, and false dwarfs that weigh "in" (some people just have to see how small they can breed Dwarfs, and pride themselves on having animals that weigh no more than a pound as adults. Such tiny animals look delicate, and I've never cared for that look, but a false dwarf from a pair of such small rabbits could very easily wind up less than 2 1/2 lbs as an adult. I'm sure there are folks doing the same thing with Hollands, I just haven't seen them).

The tricky thing about the dwarfing gene is that it is a dominant gene (meaning that if a rabbit inherits it, you _will_ see the effects from it; it won't hide), but it is also homozygous lethal (if a kit gets two copies of it, it will die, usually within 3 days of birth). So, all true dwarfs, no matter how tiny and typey, have only one copy of the dwarfing gene, and one copy of the normal growth gene. When they are bred, some of their offspring will get the dwarfing gene, and some will get the normal growth gene. If they are bred to another true dwarf, there is a 1-in-4 chance of a kit getting the dwarfing gene from both parents - those are "peanuts." Some get the dwarfing gene from one parent, and the normal growth gene from the other; those are the true dwarfs. Some just happen to get the normal growth gene from both parents; those are the false dwarfs.

A false dwarf doesn't have a copy of the dwarfing gene, so it can't give it to any of its offspring. When you breed a false dwarf to a true dwarf, only the true dwarf has a copy of the dwarfing gene, so it's the only one that can give it; the maximum number of copies of the dwarfing gene that_ any_ baby from such a cross can get is 1, so - no peanuts. You get true dwarfs and false dwarfs only, so all babies at least have a chance at living.

But just as size isn't necessarily an indicator of the presence or absence of the dwarfing gene, nor is "type." You can have a poorly bred true dwarf with a long snipey face, longish ears, and narrow body. If a person just wants to make more rabbits, that may not bother them, but if they are interested in producing good, show quality animals, but would rather avoid peanuts (gotta admit, it seems like a_ very _dirty trick, and breeding them may actually be illegal in some countries), you have to learn to recognize good type without the dwarfing gene, and that can require a _lot_ of practice.


----------



## AmberLops (Apr 28, 2019)

Very interesting and good to know!
Thanks for the info 
You're so lucky!! 've always wanted a steel!!!....what does it take to get one without a steel in the first place? have a baby chestnut and can't wait for her to grow up!
My squirrel threw me an amazing litter...an opal, Siamese sable, smoke pearl, smoke pearl point, blue and chestnut! Not one baby the same color. She had a black but it didn't make it after floppy rabbit syndrome 
I have a question for you...
I bought a Holland lop doe who i was told was a 'normal' even though she's pretty small but she's not very typey for a Holland...she has a longish body but a nice head, short ears and good boning...and when she had a litter (not her first-ever litter but first litter I've had from her) she had 3 which seems unusual considering her shape/size and 1 appeared to be a peanut, but i'm still not sure. It didn't have the deformed hind legs of a peanut, but it was SO small...like pinky-finger small and at least twice as small as the other two. Because I was told she is a normal, I wasn't expecting it! The baby only lived for about 6 days. The buck I bred her to was also bred to my other does who have not had peanuts...so I assume it isn't my buck with the dwarf gene, am I right? Or am I confused and does he carry the gene also? Would she still carry the dwarf gene if she IS a 'normal'?

Also, when you said it's a dirty trick/illegal in some countries...what is? Breeding bad-quality true dwarf netherlands?
You kind of lost me there but i'm very interested!


----------



## Bunnylady (Apr 29, 2019)

_Both_ parents must have the dwarfing gene for peanuts to happen. Sadly, there are plenty of other reasons for babies to fail, not all of 'em genetic; that this baby lasted 6 days  makes me suspect that there was something other than two copies of the dwarfing gene wrong with it (peanuts usually die in 3 days or less, because their incomplete digestive systems mean they starve to death).



AmberLops said:


> Also, when you said it's a dirty trick/illegal in some countries...what is? Breeding bad-quality true dwarf netherlands?



Creating peanuts is what may be illegal. A number of years ago, I read that some European countries were enacting anti-cruelty legislation that would make it illegal to deliberately breed animals that would suffer or die as a direct result of their genetic heritage (experiments done for the purpose of medical research being exempted). Peanuts cannot live, and while you might luck out sometimes, doing true-dwarf-to-true-dwarf breeding will lead to some peanuts getting born at least some of the time. Knowingly creating a life that doesn't stand a chance of living is what I referred to as a dirty trick.

Interestingly, going by the same logic, doing broken-to-broken breeding could also be illegal. Animals with 2 copies of the broken gene (Charlies) have digestive issues that interfere with their ability to absorb nutrients, and the almost inevitable GI stasis episodes could certainly be interpreted as "suffering."




AmberLops said:


> I've always wanted a steel!!!....what does it take to get one without a steel in the first place?



Steel is a gene that will drive you totally bonkers (in my case, that ain't a drive, it's a putt). Steel is dominant, but it takes a certain combination of genes to even know that it's there. Agouti pushes the dark pigment off of certain areas of the hair shaft, allowing light/white areas to appear; Steel pushes back, allowing more of the dark pigment to appear, thus creating a darker version of the Agouti pattern. I've long heard that you can't see Steel on a self-patterned rabbit, because there aren't any areas of light color to counteract. Some people will tell you that Steel puts white ticking on self colored rabbits, but I think they are confused about what they are looking at. In order for a Steel to look like a Steel, the Steel gene (Es) needs to be paired with the normal extension gene (E); any combination other than than EsE won't look like a classic Steel. Even an animal that is actually a genetic Agouti that has two copies of Steel (EsEs) will look like a self patterned Black; a thing that someone dubbed a "super Steel." Steel combined with non-extension (Ese) or harlequin (Esej) may have some ticking, or may once again look like a self-patterned rabbit.

If you want a Steel, one of your breeders must have it. When Ben was born, I thought he was a self Black. As he grew and matured, I realized I was seeing hints of lighter areas under his jaw, on his belly, etc; these are the areas of lighter "trim" on the Agouti and Tan patterns, but they shouldn't be there on a Self! His father was a Chestnut, and even though there were some Steeled versions of some colors on his pedigree, I knew that buck didn't have Steel, because Steel can't hide behind Chestnut. Ben's mother, though, is a REW, with a lot of other REW's on her pedigree, so there is no telling what she has. I've never seen a description of how Steel appears on a Tan patterned rabbit, but, since a Tan is basically a Self with the Agouti trim package, and I know how Steel looks on an Agouti,  I figured a Steeled Otter would probably look pretty much like Ben - turns out I was right.

So without an obvious Steel as a breeder, you'd need a rabbit that is at least carrying Steel, plus a rabbit with the right genetics to bring it out, plus just plain dumb luck (and ooh, I got chocolates to boot!!!) You need the Agouti pattern (A), plus either full color (C ) or Chinchilla  (cchd) to get enough dark pigment, and that all-important normal extension gene (E) to go with the Steel gene (Es), to get a Steel rabbit.


----------



## AmberLops (Apr 29, 2019)

Bunnylady said:


> _Both_ parents must have the dwarfing gene for peanuts to happen. Sadly, there are plenty of other reasons for babies to fail, not all of 'em genetic; that this baby lasted 6 days  makes me suspect that there was something other than two copies of the dwarfing gene wrong with it (peanuts usually die in 3 days or less, because their incomplete digestive systems mean they starve to death).
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Wow! Super interesting! SO much to learn when it comes to rabbit genetics!

Now, about the danger of broken to broken breeding....I've never heard of this!
Does that count for ALL brokens? Of all breeds? I've never done a broken to broken breeding.
Example...if I bred my broken blue doe to a broken black...would I have problems with those offspring? 

Also...do brokens generally have more issues? Now that I think of it, I've always had problems with brokens.
Like the super tiny 'peanut-ish- baby (from a broken black doe) that I mentioned that lived for 6 days was the only broken baby of the 3.
I have a broken blue doe who aborted her litter 10 days early...she had 3 and 2 were dead (the brokens) and the only one that was alive was a self black even though she cleaned all of them and they seemed like they should have been alive with no obvious birth defects/deformities.  I thought maybe she aborted them because the 2 (brokens) had died in the womb? They just looked so 'okay' to be born dead!
Thanks for all the helpful info! I appreciate rabbit people helping fellow rabbit people


----------



## Bunnylady (Apr 30, 2019)

AmberLops said:


> Now, about the danger of broken to broken breeding....I've never heard of this!
> Does that count for ALL brokens? Of all breeds? I've never done a broken to broken breeding.
> Example...if I bred my broken blue doe to a broken black...would I have problems with those offspring?



Broken is a dominant gene; if it's there, you will see it. Exactly how it gets expressed is highly variable. Some Brokens just have a little bit of white on their feet and faces (sometimes called "booted"), while others may have hardly any color on them. Most of the time, a broken-patterned rabbit with very little color is a Charlie (has inherited the broken gene from both parents), but not always; a lot of Broken Dwarfs are like the two in the first litter whose picture I posted, I know they aren't Charlies because their mother is a solid Black Otter.There are two babies in that litter that got the normal gene from their (Broken) father (namely, an Otter and a Black), but there is no telling with the two Ruby-eyed Whites - seeing what they produce as adults would be the only way to know one way or the other with them.

The problem with the broken gene is that it doesn't only affect coat color; this particular gene is involved in the growth and development of the rabbit's digestive system, and the coat color is more or less a side effect. A while back, I came across a study that was done regarding the digestive issues of Charlies, using Checkered Giants as their subject animals (I'd go hunt it up and post a link, but you know how scientists are. They love to flex their vocabularies in front of their colleagues, and the fog index on this thing was off the scale!) In a nutshell, they bred some animals, did some observations while they were alive, then euthanized them all and did detailed necropsies on them, including microscopic examinations of some sections of the intestines. They were comparing 3 groups: normal, unspotted animals, spotted (broken), and Charlies (animals that had two copies of the broken gene). The Charlies' intestines were found to have several things about them that were abnormal, including significantly fewer of the nerves that signal the muscles that are involved in moving the food through the digestive tract (peristalsis). The Brokens were also found to have a reduced number of nerves, but only slightly; the Charlies, on the other hand, had a whole lot fewer. The Charlies also had a condition called megacolon, where the last part of the digestive system balloons into a totally abnormal and inefficient shape. They found a 1-to-1 correlation between having two copies of the broken gene and megacolon; in fact, they started using the presence of megacolon as one of the factors used in deciding whether a rabbit was a Charlie, or merely a lightly marked Broken.

Most single-copy Brokens live perfectly normal lives, showing no detectable difference from their unbroken counterparts. Charlies, however, have slow-moving digestive systems and problems with nutrient absorption. Some Charlies don't make it out of the nest box alive; those that do are usually the smallest in their litter. They are prone to GI stasis episodes. Here  again, the degree to which an animal is affected is variable, but megacolon apparently gets worse with age, so the odds of an animal born with it living to a ripe old age aren't good.

Any time you breed a Broken, some babies will get the Broken gene (En), and some will get the normal gene (en). Breed two Brokens together, and some may get the Broken gene from both parents (Charlies). Not every baby from a Broken-to-Broken breeding will be a Charlie, of course; many will even be solids. But, there really isn't any advantage to breeding Brokens together, and avoiding Charlies is easy - just don't breed a broken to another broken.


----------



## AmberLops (May 1, 2019)

That's very good to know...I definitely won't be getting/keeping any broken bucks.
Another question...
Say I bred my black buck to my broken blue doe and she had 2 broken kits and 2 solids...would those 2 solids also carry the broken gene? Or just the normal gene (en)?
Funny about the Charlies...when my sister first started breeding Netherland Dwarfs, she only had Charlies and she couldn't figure out what was wrong with all the litters born and the does were actually eating their kits 
She sold all of her Charlies and stuck with Martens/Otters after that and she never had any problems with them.
I'll have to tell her about this! She is thinking about getting some brokens and I think this info will help her a lot...I know it's helped me! Thank you 
Also...
I have a little buck who's around 4 weeks old now and he has one ear starting to lop and his head is tilting a bit towards the same side as his ear...is this normal?
It's not that bad and when I put him on the floor he seems to walk normally...but his head is slightly tilted and he's looking up a lot. Could it just be because of his lopped ear? Or could it be head tilt?


----------



## AmberLops (May 26, 2019)

So.....
I rebred my Lionhead doe who had the stuck kits and she is due tomorrow.
I have my fingers crossed and i'm hoping it goes well this time. I don't think she's going to have them in the middle of the day again. I just checked on her for the last time tonight. She decided not to make the nest in the nest box...which is okay since she has baby-savers.
My main concern is her having stuck kits again and me not being there to help her...
I just hope she can make it through this!
We'll see what tomorrow brings


----------



## animalmom (May 27, 2019)

How is your doe doing?


----------



## AmberLops (May 27, 2019)

animalmom said:


> How is your doe doing?


Thanks for asking!
She still hasn't had her kits yet...I thought for sure she'd have them last night.
She looks stressed out but otherwise okay. She decided to destroy her nest and not have one anywhere now
I just hope she has them today! I have lavender oil on hand just in case...


----------



## AmberLops (May 27, 2019)

Well....still no kits 
This is so frustrating!! I don't want to wake up to a dead doe! I want her to be okay more than anything....she's a sweet rabbit.


----------



## AmberLops (May 28, 2019)

So, my doe had her kits at around 11:00 today. She had 2 dead, very deformed kits and 2 normal healthy kits!
Looks like they're chocolates or Siamese sables!
She did not have them in the box....but I put them in the box for her 
I just hope she can take care of them...we'll see!


----------



## Larsen Poultry Ranch (Jun 3, 2019)

Congratulations on the healthy kits, sorry about the ones that didn't make it. Did you use the same buck as last time or a different one?


----------



## AmberLops (Jun 3, 2019)

Larsen Poultry Ranch said:


> Congratulations on the healthy kits, sorry about the ones that didn't make it. Did you use the same buck as last time or a different one?


Thank you...sadly the 2 babies died after 2nd day. They looked fine, they were fed so I have no clue how they died.
And  I did use a different buck than last time. I used a Netherland Dwarf this time.
I actually had to get rid of the first buck (lionhead) I used because he was so aggressive and beat up one of my other does pretty bad 
So I did rebreed her...again....and i'm hoping it will work out next time! She's due again on the 30th.
Fingers crossed!


----------

