Last week I reported that Lacey had given birth to her litter of kits. Well, sadly, they have been dying off one by one ever since. Since we are newbies at this, we were unsure what could be the problem. It took the death of 4 in one day, that my daughters finally stepped in and interfered. They weren't sure how Lacey would react. For one thing, she barely knew us and secondly you are suppose to leave mom and babies alone for the first two weeks. But with only three babies left, the girls took action. The first thing they did was to check that Lacey had no infections in her nipples. When everthing looked good down there, they determined that she simply did not know what to do as a first time mother. We'd see her nursing and then hop off while the kit was still clinging to her. It was like she didn't know what they were and why they were in her cage. So the girls decided to force feed them. This required placing Lacey on her back.
This is a very uncomfortable position for a rabbit and could have them kicking out in fear or anger. However, Lacey simply laid placid in my daughter's arms. It amazes me to see those large feet suspended above her and she didn't attempt to kick out once. Next they placed a kit against her nipple and waited for it to latch on.
When it did, they added the second baby.
They look like the cutiest little rats at this age.
The little black one was fed alone since he is smaller than his siblings and the girls wanted to make sure he got all the milk he needed.
This is all that's left from Lacey's litter. I love the diverse colours. What's our chances they are all females?!
After she was done, Lacey cuddled into my daughter for reassurance before hoping happily back into her cage. With so little kits left from Lacey's litter, the girls decided to breed Odette. Odette is 9 months old and you should really breed them before they turn one if you plan on breeding because of something to do with their bones and causing difficulty in pregnacy. So we put Odette in the run with Snickers. Snickers is her dad but it is acceptable to breed father to daughter or mother to son, just not sister to brother. I taped the incident to share but nearly missed it their first round because it happened so fast. However, Snickers kept coming back to Odette to make sure the job got done. Please keep children's innocent eyes aware from this video as it contains explicit scenes!! Haha!
I'm sorry to hear about all your kits. I really hope the other 3 make it.
As to your video, that's just too funny. My males all did the same thing as well. Wrong end, fellas!
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I live a very simple life on a small hobby farm along with my husband, three kids, and an assortment of animals. Life may be simple but I love every minute of it.