brentr
Ridin' The Range
My NZ doe is due on Sunday/Monday. On Monday (10/10) I noticed she had carried her daily serving of grass hay into the nest box (hutch has permanent attached box), Tuesday, same thing plus she had pulled a little hair. Wednesday morning I found she had pulled LOTS of fur and was crudely fashioning a nest in what little grass hay she had. Wednesday evening I put in a cardboard insert over the wire bottom of the nest box, filled the box with straw, and put the pulled fur just on top of the straw. (side note: oh was she happy to have all that straw!)
Friday morning and she has definitely started to carve out a nest in the straw, but the pulled fur is nowhere to be seen in the nest she's making (I'm assuming it is mixed in the straw somewhere, but I didn't root around to try to find it). I figure she'll pull more fur as the birth gets closer, but it seems a shame to lose all that fur.
Here's my question: when you have a doe that pulls a lot of fur before you but in the nest box, what do you do with the pulled fur? Save it and store it for her and add in after the babies are born? Put it in the nest box when you put the box in the cage like I did? Just let nature run its course and trust she'll pull more fur?
This is the 2nd time this doe has started nesting before I planned to fill the nest box w/straw. I guess I need to know next time to give her nesting supplies on day 22 instead of day 28!
Friday morning and she has definitely started to carve out a nest in the straw, but the pulled fur is nowhere to be seen in the nest she's making (I'm assuming it is mixed in the straw somewhere, but I didn't root around to try to find it). I figure she'll pull more fur as the birth gets closer, but it seems a shame to lose all that fur.
Here's my question: when you have a doe that pulls a lot of fur before you but in the nest box, what do you do with the pulled fur? Save it and store it for her and add in after the babies are born? Put it in the nest box when you put the box in the cage like I did? Just let nature run its course and trust she'll pull more fur?
This is the 2nd time this doe has started nesting before I planned to fill the nest box w/straw. I guess I need to know next time to give her nesting supplies on day 22 instead of day 28!
