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<<<<< A
Case of Fostered Kits
Mary's Abby has been a very reliable brood doe. But on
this particular litter, her milk came in late and gave me
quite a scare. These babies were born in February.
There were seven in the litter, five viable kits and two
peanuts. Peanuts always die, but I allow them to die
naturally in the nest box.
These
baby rabbits worried me
quite a bit the first week. Abby's milk was apparently very late coming in.
I was just beginning to consider my options when two finally appeared to have
been well fed. The next day, four appeared well fed, and the day following
all were well fed. The peanuts died on day four (peanuts always die).
Believe it or not, one of these little mites bit the fire out of me!
Feisty!
By week two, I could tell that two are black tortoiseshell. Two
appeared to be blue tortoiseshell, and one appeared to be a sable point. Abby
is a marten, so I watched for the
at gene--otters and martens--in this litter.
What a difference a week makes! All eyes are
open and we are guarding against the possibility of eye infections. Their
nest box has been cleaned out twice since last week. Eyes were washed out, just as they turned two weeks old, and antibiotic ointment was applied to
any showing crustiness. Luckily, there are no full-blown eye infections in
this litter. Their fur has really grown and a couple are showing some nice
width to their heads. I hope that's a good sign! The "sable point"
is starting to look grayer--maybe a blue point or even a very light blue
tortoiseshell.
Wow! They really look and act like bunnies
by the third week. It's amazing the change in so little time. Just three
weeks old, and they scamper about, running and playing. They are beginning
to nibble a little hay. Two are otters, an orange and a fawn, one is tort,
one is blue tort and the other is difficult to tell still.
This litter is such a group of pastel colors!
At four weeks old, they are really looking like rabbits. Two are does and
three are bucks. You can almost tell by the larger heads which are the
bucks, in fact (that's not where I looked, though). Most of this litter
has longish fur so I will be looking during the next week or two to see if we
have any fuzzies. Especially because of this fur, I'll be on poop patrol
this week, making sure they keep relatively clean bottoms.
Once again, we see a big change this week.
Notice that most of their ears are dropping. One buck in particular gained
a great deal of weight this week (far left). The crowns look very wide in
this litter. None have gone fully fuzzy on me--yet.
At seven weeks, their mother is moved to a
new cage and they stay together as a litter. After that, the pets are for
sale (a fawn otter buck and an orange otter buck--also referred to as a tort
otter). The rest continue to mature in our barn until they are four months
old, when they are again evaluated. At that point, some are kept to show
as juniors and others are sold to other breeders.
I've finally decided that the
hard-to-determine rabbit is actually a blue point. The tort doe in this
litter is The Nature Trail's Alexis, mother of
The
Nature Trail's Mercedes!
Five Does and a Tiny Buck
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