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.

 

First Generation Replacement Doe # 2: 2nd Litter

The doe in the picture below is Replacement Doe #2 with her second set of litter. We re-bred this doe on April 20, 2012 to the broken-back Chinchilla buck. She kindled to 7 healthy kits on May 21, 2012. In breeding a rabbit, take out the doe from her cage and bring her to the buck's cage for mating. Never do it the other way around because female rabbits are extremely territorial by nature. They could harm the buck if you bring the buck over to their cage. When we first brought the doe to the buck's cage, she was fidgety and kept on running around in circles. After a few minutes of merry go round, the doe finally settled down and the buck was able to do his deed. We had to watch that the buck serviced her twice before we removed her from the buck's cage and put her back in her own cage together with her first set of litter. She could still nurse her first litter for one week before we remove and separate her from her kits. After you bring back the doe to her cage, watch her for about 30 minutes. If the doe makes a pee 30 minutes after the breeding process, this means that the semen could be washed away and this means that you have to repeat the same process all over again. Luckily, she did not make a pee and to calm her down, we gave her some sweet potato leaves to nibble on. The pictures below are the result of this second bred-back with her 8 healthy kits, her second set of litter.

First generation replacement doe # 2 with her 2nd set of litters

Piggy back

On top of the world

You were saying.......

I wanna drink too!

First Generation Replacement Doe # 3: 1st Litter

 The picture below is called Doe #3 and her first litter. She is one of the 3 replacement does that we kept from the first litter of my original stock of Cinnamon breed. Since we bred the original Cinnamon doe to the Chinchilla buck, so this makes her a half Cinnamon and half Chinchilla mix. We bred all 3 replacement does on Februay 04, 2012 but only two of her siblings, Doe #1 and Doe #2 got pregnant whereas this Doe #3 did not take.

Have you ever tried to palpate a rabbit for pregnancy check just to see if there are babies that formed inside her? Well I haven't done this myself for fear that I may be doing more harm than good just in case I make a mistake in palpating the doe. I have read about this subject on the Internet but I do not have the nerve to try it on my rabbits. If the doe does not get pregnant the first time, then perhaps she will the next time we try to have her mated again. The recommended age before the doe can be bred is at 6 months old. She was born on August 18, 2011 so she was already 5 1/2 months old when I first attempted to mate her with the Chinchilla buck on February 04, 2012. Unfortunately, she did not get pregnant.

So on April 09, 2012, I decided to have her mated with the New Zealand buck. We counted 28 days after she was mated and then we put in the nest box and some cut-up newspapers inside the cage. Gestation period takes 30-31 days before she delivers her first litter so she has two days to fix her nest. Once she feels that she is ready to make her nest, she would gather the cut up newspapers in her mouth and bring these to her nest. She will be busy jumping in and out of her nest box but just let her arrange her nest the way she wants it done. You will notice, too, that she will pull some fur from her dewlap and fill the nest box with these. This will help ensure that her kits will be warm once she delivers. They usually kindle at night or early in the morning. Finally, on May 09, 2012, she delivered 8 healthy kits. We removed the nest box 15 days after the kits were born, this is to prevent the kits from getting any disease from the litter in the nest box. We sometimes leave the nest box much longer than the recommended 15 days especially if the weather is cold. Since it is summer when they were born, and they were already leaving their nest box more often, so we took off the nest box and we just left a piece of cardboard on the floor for them to sleep on. 

  

Doe #3 and her 1st litter