I
always got nervous when my rabbits are nearly to give birth. Even I prepared everything
for the process, still happy and worried, there are no certain feelings that I
felt for those upcoming cute kits. Newly born rabbits are vulnerable, and since
they were born naked they’re unable to protect themselves. They are helpless,
blind, deaf, and rely from sense of touch to crawl and place themselves where
they can feel warm and grab their mother’s nipple to feed. Truly their first day
up to two weeks is full of struggling to survive.
Keeping in mind these precautions will minimize the injuries of your kits. This will also keep them to survive and avoid injuries and unwanted things to happen. To plan and for being well prepared I breed my rabbits by time basis and scheduled. This helps me out keeping a good records and informative data and gives me more time to prepare everything in order to survive the new born.
So,
before the doe give birth, I have necessary preparation where all precautions
and needs are settled to make sure that the kits will survive.
1.
First of all, a well-fixed nest box for the doe should be place
inside the cage. Line some materials that will help the doe to arrange her
nest. I place wood shavings and dried grasses and its perfect mixture with the
doe’s fur pulled off from her belly to create a warm nest. Be aware that a
first timer mother will sometimes pulled off less fur or after they gave birth.
I add extra fur that I collected from other nest box; do this if you found out
that there was no enough fur to keep the kits warm.
2.
Observed and keep an eye to your doe at the day of giving birth.
But don’t too obvious to get near them and watch if they’re actually giving
birth. You’ll scare or disturbed them especially the first timer doe. The
mother becomes nervous and disturbed on the day of labor. You were just
watching them just to make sure that the kits were born properly on their nest
box and to removed the other that didn’t make it.
3.
The mother sometimes or due to nervousness and uncertainty may
give birth outside the nest box. It usually happened to those young doe that
give birth for the first time. If the kits were born outside the nest box they
might chill or stuck on open spaces that will cause an injury or death. I’m
always aware about this when I know that my doe are near to give birth.
Checking them from time to time to make they’re not make it out of the box. If
this happens carefully put back the kits in the nest box, keep the mother calm
to avoid stomping after you placed the kits back.
4.
The doe give birth to 11 kits, wow you’ll feel great with this.
You probably think that this will increase your rabbit number quickly if all
your does gave birth with these number of kits. But the problem is the kits
will never feed properly by their mother. They will become unhealthy and
malnourish due to competition for the mother’s milk. The result they will grow
slowly and maybe comes underweight which is not appropriate for breeding and
meat production. If this happened just transfer the other kits to other does
with few numbers of kits. Be sure that they’re both exactly on the same day of birth.
In this way the other kits will feed properly, and I don’t find any problems in
doing this over and over.
5.
I disagree when people telling me not to touch the newly born kits
with bare hands. They said that this may result from mother’s rejection of
kits. Well I did touch the kits without gloves because it is better to check
the kits from any injuries or problems with my bare hands. All I have to do is
to wipe my hands in the mother’s body to keep the smell on my hands. But if
you’re unsure then nothing stops you to wear gloves before touching the kits.
But also as a precaution try not to touch newly born kits within 24 hours after
its birth. They’re still soft and extreme force of handling may cause them some
broken bones and injuries.
6.
After two weeks it’s better to increase the amount of feed supply
for the doe this is because the kits will start to feed on solids. This is
important to ensure that the mother and the kits were consumed enough food. But
as much as possible, I don’t try to feed the kits if they’re less than two
weeks old. Solid food often stuck in their lungs rather than on their stomach
that cause death. Just feed them if you find out that the mother have problems
of feeding her kits.
7.
Keep the nest box clean from urine and feces. Rabbit’s urine
contains ammonia that is both dangerous from both human and rabbit’s health if
it builds on the atmosphere. Kits were sometimes getting poisoned or burned
from mother’s urine. Days old kits may suffer from severe burned injury that
caused death. If the mother accidentally urinated the kits get a clean piece of
cloth soak it in water and wipe it on the kits gently to remove the urine.
8.
Observe the kits in their 10th to 11th day,
at this age they were about to open their eyes. If the kits still not opening
their eyes on the next days, check their eyes from symptoms of nest-box eye.
9.
At 3 weeks old and up they
will start to get off from the nest box, and they bound to injure themselves
from playing and roaming around the cage. Check the cage for open spaces or
broken screen floor, their feet may stuck on this open space and may cause serious
injuries in their legs.
10.
One of the unusual
experiences that I have was dealing the kits “sudden death” syndrome. The kits
were healthy then suddenly they died in unknown reasons after several days.
Overall precautions to prevent the
kits from death which is the most distressing fact that a rabbit’s
owner may encounter. I provided a separate link above about this that point
outs some helpful and informative explanations.
Keeping in mind these precautions will minimize the injuries of your kits. This will also keep them to survive and avoid injuries and unwanted things to happen. To plan and for being well prepared I breed my rabbits by time basis and scheduled. This helps me out keeping a good records and informative data and gives me more time to prepare everything in order to survive the new born.
