Baby Rabbit Accident

I was on the phone talking with one of my sister-in-laws who lives in Isabela Province yesterday. She said that the electricity just came on that day after several days of having no electricity because of the typhoons. Isabela was badly hit by the previous two typhoons that ravaged the country one week after the other. Thank God that they are safe and sound in spite of the calamity that hit them and that is more important than worldly things. Other provinces are still submerged in water so the residents could not go back to their homes. It may take a couple of months before some residents could go back to their own homes. Anyway, while I was on the phone with my sister-in-law, I heard a loud crying sound from the rabbitry. Every body went to see what it was all about naturally. Everyone thought that a rat may have gotten inside the rabbitry and is biting the baby rabbits. That's because we've seen some rats around recently although the neighbor's cat has been catching them.

 Anyway, it turned out that one of the baby rabbits caught its foot on the door of the cage because it was not closed properly. The kit must have been jumping around as usual when the accident happened. This caused the baby rabbit to cry out loud. After extricating the leg that was caught on the door, the baby rabbit was OK, no limp so far. It's just that the experience must have stressed the baby rabbit and the others as well. In fact, the black buck is having diarrhea today and I am attributing this to the stress that they all experienced yesterday. We're keeping a close watch on him and we're restricting his diet until his stool goes back to normal. All the other rabbits are doing okay so far and the baby rabbits are growing very fast. They really could eat a lot of greens specially the vines and leaves of sweet potatoes that we feed them. I just cleaned out their cages and after one hour, they made a lot of poop again. They're a regular poop machine but I like it because I could use their manure for the garden.  

Weaning the Rabbits

The baby rabbits are now 7 weeks old since yesterday, October 06,2011.  We were going to separate the baby rabbits from their mothers yesterday but I was still feeling sick so we had to postpone it. The litters can actually stay all together in the same cage where they were born until they are almost 3 months old. This will help them to keep each other warm since it is getting cold here in the mountains. Late this afternoon, we finally separated the baby rabbits from their mothers. We first removed the two does from their individual cages and placed them in their new cages that were reserved for them. By leaving the baby rabbits alone in their cage and just taking out their mother, this will reduce the stress on the baby rabbits. Then we removed the two smallest rabbits among the litters and these went with their mothers in their new cage as well. They will stay with their mothers for a few days so they can get some more milk and this will also help the mother does from suffering because of a swollen breast. After a week, we will remove the two baby rabbits from their mother  and will put them back with the rest of the litters. We have not sexed the baby rabbits yet as of this writing. We'll do that when they turn 2 months old so they will not be too stressed because of this separation from their mother.  We also took this time to use the small handy butane flame torch to burn off the furs that were sticking on the wire cages of the newly weaned rabbits. After cleaning the cages, we gave them a new feeding bowl and new drinking water bottle.  Then before we left, we fed them some pellets and greens to distract them from the stress of being transferred to a new cage.They were happily munching away when we closed the rabbitry for the day.

 

Breeding Stock Cinnamon/Chinchilla: 2nd litter

This is the first time for the black Chinchilla buck to be used and these are his off springs. We used the broken-back Chinchilla buck to mate with the two original does. This time, we thought we'd use the black Chinchilla buck since he is almost 9 months old by October 02, 2011. We first took the Cinnamon doe and put her inside the cage of the black buck. As soon as she was in the cage, the buck mounted her but the doe was not having any of that.  She took her own sweet time before she let the buck to ride her. Then she made a pee! This means that the semen of the buck must have been washed away. We had to wait for about 30 minutes until the buck served her twice again before we removed the doe and put her back in her own cage.

 

We did the same thing with the white Chinchilla but she was also not in the mood. She just kept on running around in circles going 'round and 'round the buck and jumping every time she sees the buck coming towards her. She was very aggressive this morning but apparently, she was not in the mood this evening. It looked like she was ready to fight with the buck and she would put him in a corner and the buck would just lie down. Finally, the buck got a chance and was able to service her twice before we took her out. When she was finally in her own cage with her litters, she was still running around in circles. It must be that she didn't want any of her litters messing with her at that time and she wasn't ready to feed them yet. Anyway,the pictures here are the result of that re-breeding process.

Two-Weeks Old First Generation Rabbits

One- week old litter of Cinnamon doe

One- week old litter of Chinchilla

Two-weeks old

The kits were out of their nests today and were trying to get their first taste of their mother's food, yummy. The cute little furry things had a good time exploring their surroundings. It's really amazing how fast they have grown since they were born 13 days ago. The children at home spent a few hours with the rabbits just watching them play in their pen. Thank God they are all safe and sound in the backyard rabbitry even after the bad storm that we just had. I was a little bit worried there when the wind was so strong that it broke some branches on the trees. Luckily, the rabbitry was not blown away because where it is presently located in the south west, that's where the wind  comes in which is why we did not put any windows on that wall. Rabbits can survive the cold better than the heat and the wind is not coming directly at them so they should be fine.

Ventilation in the Rabbitry

We have an on-going storm that is lashing out the city right now with strong winds and heavy rains. I went to check on my rabbits earlier to see how they were coping with the weather and so far so good, they are all sheltered from the storm in their home. The rabbitry house is rain-proof and dry inside. I just had to cover up some of the back part and the sides underneath the rabbit hutches with plastic sacks that were cut in half to protect them from any down draft that may come in from the windows. You see, the windows in the rabbitry has no window glass panes on them, just the 1 x 1 inch wire mesh that we used to take the place of the glass panes. The awning on the roof that covers the windows kept the rains from going inside the rabbitry. There was no smell of amonia build up inside the rabbitry when I opened the door. Thanks to the simple screen windows that allows fresh air to get in and circulate inside the rabbitry.

I cleaned the hutches and fed the rabbits with their daily ration of rabbit pellets and gave them their portion of vegetables. We were feeding them some sweet potato vines and leaves but they finished those greens the other day. We have some chayote or sayote vines and leaves that were gathered yesterday just before the storm came and this is what we gave to them for their greens yesterday and today. We still have some other cut grasses stored for their greens tomorrow and then we will have to gather some more for the next day or so. It's just that with this on-going storm, it is dangerous to get out of the house because you never know what is flying around that could hurt anybody. So I'm hoping and praying that the storm will leave us tomorrow so we could go out and get some greens for our rabbits. The litters are still sleeping snugly in their nest boxes when I last checked on them and they are no longer pinkish because they have grown some furs on their bodies now. I was tempted to get them out and handle them individually but I thought better of it because they looked so contented and happy sleeping in their nest so I left them well alone.

Original Stock Cinnamon/Chinchilla Doe: First Litter

These are the first litter of our Cinnamon doe that were born yesterday, August 18, 2011. They're just 1 day old today and we took this picture just this afternoon around 2 PM. They're so cute and wiggly but they're still hairless of course. We gave some greens to the mother first and then took the nest box near the cage's door and uncovered the pups as they were all covered with their mother's fur. As you can see in the picture, we used some old cut-up newspapers as their litter. We can always change the litter should they get wet since we have plenty of old newspapers. This will give us a good excuse to bring out the nest box and check on the babies while changing the litter ha-ha-ha.   

These are the first litter of our Chinchilla doe, born on the same day and perhaps the same time as the Cinnamon litter. I bred the two does on the same day with the same buck. I read on the Internet that the advantage of having two does giving birth at the same time is that you can foster the litter of the other to the doe with a smaller litter. The Cinnamon gave birth to 6 pups but the Chinchilla which is actually bigger in size has more pups like 8 or 9 perhaps. I tried to move the fur that was covering them so I could count their number but they were all wiggling and were piled on top of each other so I was not able to do a real count. I was too afraid of touching them yet just in case I do any harm. In a few more days, I'd be able to do a real count. I am just satisfied and happy that they are all alive and looking good. Oh and by the way, I noticed that when the Chinchilla made a pee, there was some speck of blood mixed in with it. I hope that was just part of her birthing process. Both of the mother does are eating well.

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.