"Oops" Happens, or Stanley's Grand Adventure

This is what "Oops" looks like.

If you think that looks like a litter of kits, you'd be right.

That litter is from Blue.  Now, if you are a regular reader, you might recall that Blue just had a litter.  Just last month, as a matter of fact, on December 8.  Now you are probably thinking that is a bit soon.  And you would have great company.  Lots of company. 

But rabbits can multiply like, well, rabbits.  So apparently Blue did not think it was too soon, even though she was still nursing a litter.  You might recall that only one of her litter of three survived.  We put her singleton with Duchess's four kits so that it would be warm enough.  And then one doe nursed the five in the morning and the other in the evening.  They all grew nice and fat and should be posted for sale any day now.

So this is what happened. 

Stanley, Lydia's lone unsold kit from Snowball's first litter, had a huge cage all to himself.  But this was not enough for him.  He would frequently escape from his cage in the bunny barn and go on grand adventures.  He was always recaptured the next morning.  Lydia had been counseled to buy more latches and springs for his cage, but alas, she did not listen carefully to Mom and did not buy enough.  And Stanley was never gone for long, so we didn't really stress about it.

However, the morning of December 27, Becky returned to the house steaming mad.  You could see the vapors rising from her head.  Stanley had not only escaped from his ground level cage, but had also--get this--jumped up onto a folding table (the nearby bale of hay may have assisted him) and then jumped up to the top of Cookie's cage, and then to the top of Blue's cage. Blue's cage opens from the top, and evidently it could not support Stanley's weight, so he crashed in.

Becky caught them in the very act.

She really did not want Blue to have another litter so soon, and especially without another doe bred at the same time.  And no one wanted to breed again so soon, because we already had two recent litters of kits, and we didn't know how quickly they would sell.  So she did the unthinkable.  She refused to turn on the radio at night so that the rabbits would hear the coyotes and Blue might get stressed and abort the litter.  And we had a lot of coyotes roaming around.

Well, now we have proof that Blue does not intimidate easily. 

And, T.M., new owner of Stanley, Stanley is now "proven." 

For those interested, we think these kits are black, chocolate, lilac, chinchilla, and REW.  Charlotte also just tried her hand at sexing newborn kits.  It looks like the REW is the only buck.