GypsyG
Loving the herd life
My big Flemmish Giant doe, Wendy, gave birth to thirteen bunnies last night! Unfortunately, one of them was DOA, but still... that's 12 baby bunnies!!!!
The sire of the litter is a big broken red French Lop/New Zealand cross, so there is a whole rainbow of bunny cuteness in that nest box! Chestnut agoutis, broken agoutis, blacks, broken blacks, reds, broken reds, one that is either a broken tort or a tri color, and even a blue!!! I didn't know my doe carried non extenstion red or dilute!!! More holes in her genotype filled in! Yay!!!
But... I had bred a doe who I knew was prone to small litters two days before I bred Wendy, hoping if I needed to I could use her as a foster mom since Wendy is prone to big litters (her previous record was 10). The other doe's breeding didn't take, and she ended up having a false pregnancy (one more stunt like that and she'll get served with dumplings), so now I have a doe with eight teats and twelve kits.
Now I am faced with the decision to let nature take it's course and see what happens, or wait a couple of days and cull any that appear to be runts for the greater good of Wendy and the litter.
So far they seem very uniform in size and energy level.
The poor little unlucky 13 seemed to be underdeveloped with malformed legs. She did not even bother to finish trying to clean it. I didn't know what else to do with the the poor little dead thing, so I tossed it to my chickens. They knew what to do and made quick gory work of it.
I try to only reserve does for my herd that come from litters of 8+. I will probably reserve two or three does from this litter if everything goes well!
The sire of the litter is a big broken red French Lop/New Zealand cross, so there is a whole rainbow of bunny cuteness in that nest box! Chestnut agoutis, broken agoutis, blacks, broken blacks, reds, broken reds, one that is either a broken tort or a tri color, and even a blue!!! I didn't know my doe carried non extenstion red or dilute!!! More holes in her genotype filled in! Yay!!!
But... I had bred a doe who I knew was prone to small litters two days before I bred Wendy, hoping if I needed to I could use her as a foster mom since Wendy is prone to big litters (her previous record was 10). The other doe's breeding didn't take, and she ended up having a false pregnancy (one more stunt like that and she'll get served with dumplings), so now I have a doe with eight teats and twelve kits.
Now I am faced with the decision to let nature take it's course and see what happens, or wait a couple of days and cull any that appear to be runts for the greater good of Wendy and the litter.
So far they seem very uniform in size and energy level.
The poor little unlucky 13 seemed to be underdeveloped with malformed legs. She did not even bother to finish trying to clean it. I didn't know what else to do with the the poor little dead thing, so I tossed it to my chickens. They knew what to do and made quick gory work of it.
I try to only reserve does for my herd that come from litters of 8+. I will probably reserve two or three does from this litter if everything goes well!
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