People think that because of the saying (breed like rabbits) that breeding rabbits is easy....HA big time mistake!
There are many things that can go wrong when breeding bunnies and believe me we've had our fair share.
Sometimes it's automatic and plain sailing. You put the doe in the bucks cage, see a few fall offs, take her out put her back in her cage. Now wait 4 weeks and 3 days and you should have a beautiful litter delivered in the nest, cleaned off nicely, fed and covered with moms fur. Well... believe me breeding bunnies isn't for the faint hearted! It most certainly doesn't always work out this way. Usually problems are more so with first time moms.
Here's a few problems we've run into...
1- Flopsy- she got pregnant and had a normal pregnancy. Everything was great she built her nest and lined it with fur but suddenly seemed very uncomfortable. After breeding a bunnies for a while you can tell when somethings not right. So I got her out the cage... what's that..? A baby hanging half in and half out, OK what do I do here. Call a vet? Out of hours emergency vet... its going to cost about ÂŁ3000 to get the babies out your better putting her to sleep. NOT ON MY WATCH!!! So... out come the rubber gloves and the vegetable oil. Flopsy was still contracting. Remember by now this baby and all babies inside are going to be dead as its taken too long to get them out so now my attention is solely on mom! I put vegetable oil around moms private area to help the babies to slip out. Then tickled her sides to encourage contractions. With each contraction I pull gently on the dead baby (wasn't pleasant at all as the baby was stuck it was stretching it but I had to think about mom she was the only one I had the chance of saving). Finally the baby comes out it was 3 times as long as it was meant to be. I gave flopsy some kale to boost her calcium and energy. Here we go the next one is coming but mom looks like she giving up... now I'm rubbing her belly with each contraction to encourage the babies towards the birth canal. Loads of vegetable oil around the area and out comes the head, baby's is deffinately dead so I take hold of the bit that is out and with each contraction (mostly stimulated by tickling her sides) I gently pull... Out it pops. She was exhausted and from feeling her tummy there was only one left in there and it was tiny. Her contractions had stopped so I left her to calm down. The following morning she had managed to pass the final baby it was dead as expected. Very grim... on the up side I had saved flopsy and she's is now happily living as a spoilt pet bunny with a loving family.
2- Martha and Skye- these girls have 1 things in common. They tried too hard to be a good mom... babies were born mom ate the placenta (noramal) but unfortunately over cleaned the litter and ate a few babies. This is pretty common for a first time mom. In my opinion Martha was purely over cleaning and had taken a front foot and an ear off 1, back feet of 1, ears and a bit of back skin off another and the final one had no skin on its back from the neck to the bottom. She was devastated and you could tell she wanted her litter. Skye on the other hand... she panicked and ate one completely apart from the head, took the skin off 1, others had a mixture of feet and ears missing. She didn't do this to be nasty she simply panicked and didn't know what to do with them so she tried to get rid of them. This is often something first time moms can do. If this happens remove the baby remains and the nest. Gut the cage disinfect it and put brand new straw in... leave her a week and rebreed her. Dont leave her too long or she's likely to do the same thing again.
3- Hopes neglect. Sometimes a mom will just decide she doesn't want the litter. Why? No one knows it's her head! This doesn't mean she will do the same with the next litter its just a type of post natal depression in rabbits! Moms can urinate on a litter if they are disowning them (take care though, this can also be their way of claiming the babies and resenting them). Again if this happens rebreed after a week, this is why I always breed does in a minimum of pairs, hand feeding never works out if you breed 2 at a time you have a surrogate mom. See the forum for how to surrogate babies. This was what happened with hopes first litter!
4- Maria this is another blog story so without too much detail... something frightens the mom or suddenly has a mental breakdown and will thump the babies to kill them so that they can't be killed by something else. A tip to avoid this... keep the baby area as quiet and normal for mom as possible. Whenever you handle the babies, wash your hands and handle mom first. Remove mom out of vision of her litter and then handle the babies, always remove any dead kits ASAP to avoid them eating the litter. Once babies are back in the nest put mom back. Try to touch the actual nest as little as possible. Your sent will not affect mom as she is used to you but other bunny sents can.
How cute are these? Now imagine seeing them all in pain with limbs and skin missing or even finding a head with arteries still attached. Sorry I know to most people that's revolting but unfortunately that's the reality of breeding bunnies. Could you handle it?
Hopefully this helps anyone considering breeding bunnies to make the right decision for them!
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