Doe lost a second litter

[DianeS]

Her first litter was 7 kits, all on the wire with no fur pulled. Six were dead when I found them. One lived for a couple hours, but then passed. All of them had been born alive and had crawled out of the cage.

This second litter was two in the nest box and two on the wire. She pulled fur, but only put a little bit in the nest box. All the kits were dead when I found them. I wonder if they were born dead, since they all seemed to be laying where they were probably born. None had crawled anywhere.

So, still one more chance for this doe. I'm not really having success with this batch of rabbits. I haven't had a live litter since moving to Oregon last August. It's depressing.

 

[SuburbanFarmChic]

Oh man, I bet that is incredibly frustrating and disheartening. I'm so sorry. Losing babies is never easy.

I had one doe that was terrible about building a nest but would care for them aside from that. I ended up building her a bird nest looking thing out of hay every time. If you are using the hutches that are available at Petsmart and such then there is no crawl barrier to keep babies where they are supposed to stay. Also the spaces in the door wire are too big and babies can get out if they can crawl there. I slid the divider out of mine and cut 3" off the top. Then I slid the 3" piece in first so there was a barrier and then I slid the door hole piece in next so mom could still get through and the wind block was still in place. No more naughty crawling babies.


Also while mothering ability can certainly be passed along, I retained one doe from my terrible mother and gave her a chance. So far she's the best baby manager I have. Built a great nest, all kits born in the nest and when it's really hot she spreads them around the cage so they can cool off and then puts them back when temps drop again. She's awesome.

The other way to deal with babies getting out of the next is to build a lower story to your hutch and that's where the nest usually ends up being. I've seen people just use a tote with some holes drilled for urine drainage. That gets bolted to the bottom of the hutch and the babies stay down in the nest area when mom jumps out so they aren't dragged along if she's just walking away.

 

[DianeS]

The rabbits I'm griping about are all French Angoras, all siblings from a terrible mother. I keep the adults for wool production, and intended to breed them for meat rabbits. They all have standard hanging large meat rabbit cages. When I think a doe is pregnant she gets one with baby saver wire.

I have six does and two bucks, and I try different combinations for breeding. In spite of witnessing what should have been several successful breedings among the rabbits, this doe is the only one to have kits. I know who the sire is for this litter, but all the other does have been with different bucks by turns, to no avail.

I don't think I'm doing anything wrong, I just think I have bad stock. Mom rejected every litter she had, including these. These were raised by foster does. They have always seemed to develop slowly, like not even being interested in mating until a full year of age.

If her third litter isn't successful I think I'll have to part with some of the Angoras to save money for meat rabbits with better parentage.

 

[Hens and Roos]

Sorry to hear this. I hope she does better with the next litter