Expectant Does

               The Chinchilla doe is resting after overhauling the newspapers in her nest box.

We purposefully made the nest box of the Chinchilla doe slightly bigger because she is bigger in size than the Cinnamon doe. We put in the nest box inside the cage on the 28th day after breeding and that is today, the 16th of August. Knowing this, we made some preparations for the delivery and we cut up a lot of old newspapers into 1/2 inch strips and used these as a litter to line up the bottom of the nest boxes. The litter came up to about four inches from the wire bottom. Then we cut up a cardboard box that would fit outside the wire bottom of the next boxes. This will serve as a cover against any down draft coming from the floor of the all-wire cages. It would be easy to change the cardboard at the bottom of the wire box once it gets dirty. All we need to do is to lift up the nest box and change the cardboard underneath where it was sitting on since the cardboard is not attached to the bottom. When everything was ready, we put each nest box inside their individual cages. The two does didn't know what to make of their nest box at first and they started chewing on the wood. Then they got inside their individual nest box and started to dig in and brought everything out! What are we going to do now?

                       This is the Cinnamon doe resting after she re-arranged her nest box.

We were observing them as this is our first time to raise rabbits. When they got tired of jumping in and out of their nest box, they would take a rest and would stretch out to their full length on the wire floor right next to their iced-water bottle. Then after a few minutes, they would go back inside the nest box again and would bury themselves in the newspaper cuttings and they would continue to dig. After some time, they came out of their nest box and we noticed that they were gathering the newspapers in their mouth that were strewn all over and they were putting them back inside the nest box! They were rearranging the newspapers in the nest box the way they wanted it done! So don't try to rearrange their nest, just let them do as they please because they know best what they want and how they want their beds done. To us newbies, we thought that was really amazing because we've never seen rabbits making their nest before. The size of the nest box that we gave them was really perfect for each of them. They can turn around inside and they could get in and out of it easily as well. So now it’s just a wait and see because they can give birth within two days after putting in the nest box or any day and anytime from now. 

Making the Rabbit Nest Boxes

Since we do not have any scrap wood materials around the house, we had to buy some new ones to make the rabbit's nest boxes. We bought two pieces of 1x8x8 rough wooden boards and it costs us 651.00 pesos ( six hundred fifty one pesos in Philippine money). Since we were able to make three nest boxes out of these materials, the cost of one nest box is only 217.00 pesos. It would have cost us more if I had gone to a wood shop and have them made the nest boxes as I had originally intended to do. We used a 1/2 x 1/2 hole wire materials with gauge # 14 for the bottom of the cages. These wires are actually left over materials from the all-wire hanging cages that my brother Joe made so they were all put to good use, nothing wasted.

My brother Joe making the sides of the nest box out of a 1/2 inch x 8 inches wide by 10 feet long board.

Assembling the sides of the nest box.

Four sides done.

Now he's putting the top part of the nest box.

The rabbit can use the top part of the nest box if she wants to get away from her kits.

We used 1-inch finishing nails to join the boards together. 

Now comes the bottom part with the left over 1/2 x 1/2 inch wire floor.

The left over wire floor is attached to the bottom with no. 1 staple wires. 

The all-wire bottom will be covered with plywood underneath to make a double bottom.

All done!

Showing the top part of the nest box.

Making the second nest box a little smaller for the Cinnamon doe as she is smaller than the Chinchillia doe.

Same all-wire bottom but shorter in length.

Showing the three nest boxes with all-wire bottoms. 

One 18- inches long and two 16- inches long nest boxes all done.