About three weeks ago some of our friends decided that they were done with their rabbits. The rabbits were from the first litter we raised here, and they had had them for 2.5 years. Our friends and enjoyed the experience, but they were done. So we took back their rabbits--three total--two does and a buck. Three days later, Lola, one of the does, started picking up hay in her mouth. I then remembered what Karsynn had said only a week earlier: "Oh, and by the way, Remy (Remington) has gotten onto Lola's side (of the hutch) a couple of times."
Great. Kits whose parents are siblings.
But with every passing day, and no signs of pregnancy or kits, I hoped Lola only had a false pregnancy. By the third week of having her, I was quite sure that all was going to be well.
And then she started to pull a ton of wool. In the three weeks she had lived with us, she made one or two nests and pulled a little bit of wool, so I nervously tried to shrug this one off, too. But she was pulling a lot of wool. Maybe she was just a little hot in this 40 degree (Fahrenheit) weather.
At 12:30 PM on Wednesday I decided to check on Lola. I had peeked into the nesting box tons of times already in the last three weeks, and found nothing, so you can imagine my surprise when I found kits this time. I had been dreading it for three weeks, but when it actually happened, I couldn't help but feel a little bit of excitement, the excitement when you see an animal only minutes old and just starting to discover its new world.
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| All five in the nest box |
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| Fawn |
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| Chocolate |
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| REW |
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| Broken lilac |
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| Lilac |
There are five kits. The broken is a little small and he just may not make it. Because the parents are siblings I won't be selling these as show bunnies. Some breeders are just fine doing that, and breeding siblings together is actually a great way to find out if you have any undesirable recessive genes in your breeding stock. I'm just not comfortable selling them as show rabbits. However, they will still be just fine to be sold as woolers.
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