First litter....no survivors :(

[Lil Chickie Mama]

I finally got the courage to breed my Californian doe (1 year old) and watched a bunch of bunny p*rn as my dh called it, otherwise known as informational youtube videos. I introduced her to the buck, they had a couple successful dates before I removed her about 10 minutes later. Then about 8 hours later I did it again and same story, then marked dates on my calendar. I didn't palpate her because she is SO skittish I didn't want her to freak so I just prayed and hoped she was knocked up. I put the nest box in on day 28, she ate the hay...grr..I kept replacing hay and I was encouraged because she kept pulling things into the cage, the cloth laid over ice block to keep her cool, and her neighbors cloth too, she pulled a tiny bit of fur. Still though on day 31 no babies. Day 32 no babies. Finally today it is day 35 and 3 dead babies.

They were covered by hay and fur but cold as ice. When I went out to look she was on the nest and I had to throw hay in the corner of the cage to distract her out so I could see what the situation was and that's when I saw lots of fur pulled. But upon closer inspection, 3 dead kits, 2 in the front of the nest COVERED with ants, and 1 in the back with some ants. They appeared perfectly formed and actually looked big to me compared to the size of other kits I'd seen of this breed. I just wish I knew, were they stillborn, did the ants kill them, did she trample them, were they not covered enough, did she hold them too long before kindling (if that's even possible, again they were big)? Frustrating. Also I am concerned because she only had 3, she was from a litter of 11 so I was expecting slightly higher numbers. I put in a fresh nestbox with fresh hay inside in case she still has more to go and will check throughout the day.

Sorry for the long post. Someone please tell me that this is likely a first-time mom problem and she will do better next litter.

 

[Bunnylady]

I'm sorry your first experience with breeding rabbits turned out this way.

It is pretty rare for babies born on day 35 to survive. Most of the time there's only one or two in the litter, and they are so big that the birth process takes too long and they don't survive it. A lot of the time you can tell if they were born head first or tail first, because the nose or back feet will be dark and bruised looking from the blood that got forced there by the doe's efforts to expel them.

I don't think it's a first-time mother problem at all; it sounds to me like your doe gets high marks - babies in the nest, fur pulled; she did everything she was supposed to do. I think this litter was lost because there were only 3 babies in it, and that could be the doe, it could be the buck, or it could be "one of those things."

The size of the kits at birth is influenced by the number of kits the doe is carrying. Generally speaking, the more kits in the litter, the smaller each kit will be (with allowance for the size of the doe, of course; small breeds have smaller kits than large breeds do). I can often make a rough guess at the size of the litter when I first see them, based on the size of the first kits I see.

Just when the litter is born can also be influenced by litter size. Most of my does give birth on day 31 or 32; if they go much past that, I expect to wind up finding one or two oversized, dead babies. I had one doe that always kindled on day 30, but that was just her pattern. The only times I can remember does giving birth on day 28 or 29, they were carrying huge litters (12 - 14).

If this were my doe, I'd give her a day or two to recover, then breed her again. Rabbits don't do classic "heat" cycles, but their hormone levels do fluctuate. A doe experiences one of her highest hormonal peaks right after she kindles; a doe that gets bred then will likely produce the largest litter of which she's capable (numerically speaking).

Good luck!