Emergency Delivery in the Rabbitry

It was a lazy Tuesday afternoon while I was using the computer when my hubby came rushing in the house and informed me that one of the does is eating her fur! He said that he tried to take the fur off the doe's mouth but she continued to pull hairs from her body. The first thing that came to my mind was "Oh my God! She must be ready to give birth". So we both rushed to the rabbitry and sure enough, the doe was pulling hairs from her body! The tuft of fur that my hubby pulled out of her mouth was on the floor so I picked it up and put in back inside the cage. Then I checked the breeding schedule that was hanging inside the rabbitry and she was due to deliver that day at that moment and to my surprise, it's not just her but two other does as well! The nest boxes were supposed to have been put inside their cages two days before their expected due date but we forgot all about it!

So it was like having an emergency delivery in the hospital, only this time it's for the does. We had to rush and cut up some newspapers into 1/2-inch wide strips to be used as dry litter for the nest box. As soon as we finished putting about 3-inches thick of shredded newspapers in the box, we put it inside the cage and the doe jumped right in and scratched through the litter like crazy as if she's trying to make a hole in the nest.  This is because she is trying to re-arrange the nest the way she wants it done so we just let her do her own thing. Whenever she jumps out of the box, some of the shredded newspapers would come out with her and she would patiently pick them up with her lips and put them back in the nest box again. Then she would pull out some more furs from her body and mixes it up with the shredded newspapers. When she is satisfied with her work, then she takes a rest knowing that her kits would be comfortable in the warmth of the nest box once they arrive.

Once we were done with one nest box, we started doing the same thing with the other two remaining nest boxes. It's really good timing because the second doe just started pulling hairs from her body too! The third doe was still calm and just laying on her belly. So that gave us enough time to finish the second nest box and then we did the third box. The next morning, the first and second expectant does gave birth but the other one gave birth one day behind. So everything is fine now, the does are doing fine and are eating well. I will take a peek into their nest boxes tomorrow to do some counting. I would have done it today but I didn't want to stress out the does so that could wait until tomorrow.

On Losing A Doe

Two days before our breeder does are due to give birth, we put in about 2-3 inches thick of shredded newspapers inside their nest box and scatter the rest of the shredded newspapers on the floor. As soon as the nest box is inside the cage, the doe will jump right in and would make a scratching motion as if she is digging for gold and everything would come flying out of the box. Then she would lie down to take a rest and get back with her mission of digging once again. Soon after, all the shredded newspapers strewn all over the floor would be gathered by using her lips and she would bring these back inside the nest box. Huh? Doesn't make sense but that's how it is and that's how it's always been with them. They arrange their nest according to their own design. So their next job is to pull some furs from their dewlap and put these in with the shredded newspapers inside their nest box. Then once they are content with their work, then they do what they do best, give birth to their litters. 

We usually breed our does by twos or by threes or sometimes even by four does at a time. The advantage of this system is that the does with a fewer litter could foster the kits of the other does with a bigger litter. So anyway, we were expecting these two does to give birth that night. The next morning, my sister-in-law Emy was wondering why one of the expectant does did not come out of her nest box whereas the other doe was already out and about. So Emy looked inside the box and found this Chinchilla doe stretched to her full length inside the nest box and was already dead. The doe was doing fine just last night when we fed her and we were expecting her to give birth that night.We do not know what caused her death and this is our first time to lose a doe in giving birth. There was no injury on any part of her body so we just assumed that she may have had a difficult time in giving birth last night. So we were all saddened by this loss. She was a very good breeder and we wanted to honor her life so we buried her in the flower beds in the garden.

Breeding 3d Generation Rabbits

Last Saturday ( July 08, 2012), I bred-back for the second time the black doe of Cinnamon breed and the New Zealand white doe with the Junior Chinchilla buck. This buck is from the 3rd litter of my original stock of Chinchilla doe. I call him Junior Chinchilla to differentiate him from his father which was already sold sometime ago. I would have used the New Zealand buck to mate with the New Zealand doe but I wanted to see if  the malocclusion problem will still come up on the doe's 3rd litter. This is why I had her mated with the Junior Chinchilla buck.

New Zealand doe

2nd Generation Cinnamon Replacement doe 

New Zealand buck

Junior Chinchilla buck

I also kept one female from the 3rd generation of my original stock of Chinchilla doe and raised her as replacement doe. Since this doe is a sibling of the Junior Chinchilla buck, I could not mate them together to avoid inbreeding. So I used the New Zealand buck instead to mate with this doe. What was so funny about it was that after their first mating, the doe kept still just lying on her back and I was afraid that she may have suffered a heart attack! So I opened the cage and touched her gingerly but she didn't move! That kinda scared me. I touched her again and she jumped right back on her feet. I guess she was just shocked because this was her first time to be mated.

3rd Generation Chinchilla Replacement Doe

Anyway, I also kept one kit from the 3rd litter of the Cinnamon doe and raised her as replacement doe. She did a lot of running and jumping when I put her in the buck's cage. I guess she was scared since this is her first time to be mated.

3rd Generation Cinnamon Replacement Doe

Fourth Generation Litters of Cinnamon and Chinchilla Does

These are the pictures of the Original stock of Cinnamon doe with her 4th litter as shown in the picture below. She gave birth to her 4th litter with 6 healthy kits on April 24, 2012. Her kits are still with her in the same cage as of this writing because I am running out of cages! When I first started raising these rabbits, I could not wait for them to grow up and start breeding. Now that they are breeding, I am getting overwhelmed with rabbits! They really multiply so fast and it's a good thing that I had the cages built and ready before I even started raising these original stocks of rabbits. Their cages are 2.5 feet wide by 3 feet long so there is enough space for the doe and her kits. I will be harvesting some meat rabbits on the first week of July so that will give me some empty cages and I could transfer these litters from their mothers. The kits are almost 2 months old in this picture below. I plan on giving these two original Cinnamon and Chinchilla does a rest from breeding to give them a chance to recuperate from all the kindling that they've been through for four consecutive breeding season. Maybe a month of rest from breeding will do them good so they could regain back their strength and stamina.

Original Cinnamon breeding stock at the back with her 4th litter.

Original stock of Cinnamon breed

The pictures below are that of my original stock of Chinchilla doe and her 4th litter. When we placed the Chinchilla doe inside the Chinchilla buck's cage to be bred, she was very eager and ready to mate but the buck was not! He must have gotten tired because we used him first to mate with the Cinnamon. It was really funny and comical to watch them because the doe was humping the head of the buck and the latter was all hunched down cowering in the corner. He played the role of "hard-to-get" until the doe got tired and settled down somewhat and then the buck was able to do his deed. Anyway, she kindled 5 healthy kits on April 23, 2012. Unfortunately, one of the kits of the Chinchilla was found in the gutter one morning. The kit must have been clinging to her mother's teat when the doe hopped out of her nest box after nursing her pups and the kit was carried along with her. There is no other way for the kit to have crawled out of its nest box at that time because the litter were not even a week old at that time. When the doe nurses her kits, she does not lie on her side like what dogs and cats usually do but rather, she sits and kinda leans forward a little while her kits feed on her teats. Anyway, there are only 4 kits living with their mother now in the same cage until I could transfer them in their own cage. 

Malocclusion Problem

We encountered a malocclusion or misaligned teeth problem with just 1 kit from among the 1st and 2nd litters of my original stock of Chinchilla doe. The kit could hardly eat because of its protruding teeth, then it got thinner and thinner until we had to destroy it. The thing is, we did not notice this problem at first until the kit was about 3-4 months old. I told my neighbor Johnny ( he's the source of my breeding stocks) about this and he traced the parentage of my original Chinchilla doe but unfortunately, he already slaughtered the mother and father of my breeding stock and said that he did not encounter any of this malocclusion problem with his rabbits before. He advised me not to keep this doe with this malocclusion problem because it might show up again in the future. It's just that I did not want to destroy this Chinchilla doe because she is a good mother and I like her big sized body. Besides, I am only raising rabbits for meat and not for show rabbits so I decided to keep her. The third time that she gave birth, I did not see any of the malocclusion problem among her kits so I kept one of them as replacement doe. I also encountered this malocclusion problem with 2 kits from the first litter of the New Zealand rabbit. When I re-bred her again the second time, I did not see it in her second litter which happened to be just one kit. I was not able to take pictures of the rabbits that were afflicted with this malocclusion problem but I did find some free images on the net to show you what it looks like.

 

Second Generation Black Doe: 1st litter

When my original breeding stock of Cinnamon doe gave birth to her second litter, there were 4 males and 3 females. One of the female was bought by a neighbor's kid as her pet when the kit was 1 1/2 months old. I kept the remaining 2 black female as replacement does. I call them as second generation replacement does to distinguish them from the first replacement does. Anyway, when they were ready for breeding, another neighbor came to ask if he could buy a ready-to-breed doe because he did not want to have to raise a rabbit from 1 1/2 months old until breeding time. I was hesitant at first to sell him the doe because I was just starting to increase my breeding stock which is why I am keeping the females. Anyway, I gave in and sold them one of the ready-to-breed black doe so as not to disappoint his son who was with him at that time. The boy was very eager to bring home a big rabbit for his pet and for breeding. So that left me with only one black doe for breeding. I bred her for the first time with the black Chinchilla buck on March 22, 2012 and she kindled her first litter of 5 healthy kits on April 24, 2012. These are their pictures below.

This is the second generation replacement doe and the pictures above are her first litter.

New Zealand: Second Litter

The New Zealand doe was re-bred to the New Zealand buck on April 20, 2012. This re-breeding process was done 6 weeks after she gave birth to her first litter and one week before weaning her first litter. Once again, we brought her to the New Zealand buck's cage and after the buck serviced her twice, we removed her and put her back in her cage together with her first litter. She started molting soon after but she grew back some new hair after two weeks and every thing went back to normal. One month after the re-breeding, she gave birth on May 24, 2012. It came as a big surprise to us because she had only 1 pup! This is our first time to have just 1 pup from our rabbits. We even took out the nest box just to check if there are other pups that may be hidden under the litter but there was nothing except for this one pup. Satisfied that we did not miss any dead pup, we covered up the pup with its mother's fur and put back the nest box into the cage. Since the pup has no siblings, she gets to have all the milk from her mother so she is really growing fast. I think that I will have to give this doe a rest after this second litter. She can nurse her one pup for 2 months instead of the usual 1 and 1/2 months that we do for the other rabbits. She could rest for 1 month after weaning the pup and then she will have recovered enough to be re-bred again by August. This picture below shows the big baby rabbit at 3 weeks old and her mother, the New Zealand doe.

 

New Zealand doe and her kit