New Life on the Homestead: Bunnies!
It should come as no surprise that when you put two rabbits together for a month that something might happen. And yet, I was startled when my son came running up yelling there were babies in our rabbit cage! It had only been one month together and our young doe and buck produced a litter of 10 kittens (yes, kittens--I had to look that one up). Rabbits truly multiply.
But what now?
This was my first experience with one of our animals giving live birth and I felt a little unsure on how to proceed. @bluerthangreen happened to be out of town working at the moment, so it was up to me to make the next move. Fortunately, @papapepper lives a quarter mile up the road and has already had experience with multiple litters. He stopped by to check out our new batch and to see if all was well.
As a learning homesteader, I find the best learning is through experience. But, along the way, it sure helps to have a multitude of counselors and cheerleaders to keep you on the right path and offer timely advice.
The first thing I didn’t know is that the male should be taken out of the cage. Apparently the male rabbits can harm the babies if left in. Not all do, but it is a risk. Beyond that, according to raising-rabbits.com, the buck will be eager to re-breed the doe within 24-48 hours of delivery, which can be very hard on the mama.
Here’s the buck set up separately in this mobile shopping cart rabbit-tractor. As a side note, these are the ingenious creations of @papa-pepper. They are repurposed garbage carts picked up on commercial lawn maintenance runs. You can read more about that here.
As I observed the mama and babies, I was a little concerned about the doe not tending to her litter, but apparently this is normal. Even in the wild they visit the kittens--nestled in snugly and safely in a nest full of fur tufts--for a quick suckling a couple times a day and then leave. Sadly though, it is very common for the doe to kill or abandon her first litter. In fact, one homesteader reported:
After eight years of breeding I can only count about 5 doe’s that have successfully raised their first litter. All the rest have either killed or abandoned the entire first litter. It seems that they treat the first pregnancy as a ‘trial run’ to 'test the water'
http://mismatch.co.uk/rabbitlitter.htm
As a confluence of bad timing, we had to leave the very next day to head to Wisconsin. Hopefully the mama did what she should and all is well, but unfortunately, life and death on the homestead are all part of the learning process. I’ll keep you all posted on how these little hairless wonders grow. Our plans are that we can breed them for a meat source and grow in self-sufficiency bit by bit.
Thanks for sharing in our journey! @allforthegood
Ohhh those are such tiny little babies! I never saw a new born rabbits :) Good luck with them. Hope they grow well :)
Thank you! Looks like I have 6 left, hopefully the rest will survive.
Fingers crossed for the little ones then :)
Fantastic post! We raided bunnies when I was a kid. There is nothing like baby bunny kittens. Sure hope your Mama doe beats the odds and takes care of her first litter. Thanks for sharing this post.
Thank you so much! The kids can't wait to handle them, but I just feel like they're to fragile and then the mama might abandon them. When they're a little bigger I know they'll have a blast petting and playing with them. Too bad they're for meat!
Nice post, and the best of luck with raising the new babies!!
Thank you. I'm hoping the mama instincts will take care of most of it and they''ll get what they need. It sure is exciting seeing new life...we had two rabbits. Now we have 12!
We used to raised rabbits too, when I was little, back at our Romanian little farm. One of my older brothers used to be proud of having successfully raised over 100 rabbits. Needless to say, when I've grow a bit and tried to raise some myself, I couldn't get more than 50, and I wasn't even taking care of them.
By that time all my brothers were gone from Home and I would of had to take care of them all by myself. Which I didn't do. I kind of miss those days, it was fun. Different, but fun.
Great post Ms. @AllForTheGood! Thanks for sharing. :)
Thank you. We will see where it goes from here. Did you raise them for meat or for show, or pets? I think it's a special memory for a child, and I hope ours remember it that way too.
We mostly raised them for meat, but it was also a responsibility given to us so that we may understand better the mechanics of being responsible and taking care of something else's Life. It is indeed a special memory, and I think you're doing great. Children are very appreciative of Life around them, without discriminating between animal or human.
great post , love the naked bunnies , voted + resteemed and followed
Thank you! Can't wait til they're furry little bundles to hold.
Goats, chickens, ducks, bunnies, and pigs oh my!
I know! Ain't nothin' to it but to do it!
Yeah, um.... about those bunnies.... You've got six.
In other news we removed a Racer snake from your property today!
I'm thankful we have any left from this first batch. Thanks for watching them for us...and for removing yet another snake. I certainly won't miss it :)
I've never seen newborn bunnies - "kittens". At first I thought I was looking at piglets. When I was growing up, a widow and her daughter who lived down the road from our family raised angoras for the fur. I don't know if it was lucrative, but I do know angora sweaters were popular back then.
I remember having an angora sweater. That would be an amazingly soft pet to pet
Good luck on the first batch :) Although it seems if you lose the 10...er...six kittens...there is a PRETTY good chance you'll get more shortly.
So teeny! Hope some survive so you can hold them when you get back. (But please don't eat them).