When we last made a rabbit post, we were anxiously awaiting a litter of rabbits while mother rabbit was preparing a nest in her nesting box.  Sometime the night of the post, our doe delivered her first litter.  The litter was 11 kits, one of which we lost the first morning.  She delivered on a night that was pretty cold and we surmised that the kit had wandered away from the huddled litter and died of exposure.  We had wrapped the hutch in plastic and provided a incandescent lamp as a heat source, but it wasn't enough.  We later swapped out the lamp for a space heater... probably throwing our cost per pound of rabbit equation off due to electricity consumption.  We had planned the timing of the litter based on Easter though, so we had anticipated the possible issues with the cold.

Since that first night we lost another kit at about 4 days old, we think because it was accidentally suffocated.  It was away from the group and under the hay, and we think the doe inadvertantly rested on it while tending to the rest of the young.

Turns out our speculation in the last post about the "bird's nest" depression in the hay was correct.  She had the litter exactly where we thought she might.  The kits were also a bit larger than we had expected at about 4-5 inches long at birth.  I think we both expected them to be about half that size.  They have also grown phenomenally fast!  At less than a week, they had beginnings of fur.  At about 10 days, their eyes began opening.  At two weeks, they had a full coat of fur.  At less than one month old, they are several times the size they were at delivery and are weaning themselves by eating hay and rabbit food.  They have also started learning how to drink from the chicken waterer nipple, which is quite a feat when one considers that they can barely reach it!  Next time around, I think the nursery hutch will have a lower nipple for the young.

Dawn also discovered it's quite difficult to count the number of kits in the litter since when they hear activity in the nest box they start jumping around like crazy.  They won't stop moving enough to be counted since they think that activity means nursing time and they start actively search out a mother and a teat.

I'm concerned about the fact that these things are so cute that it's going to be tough when it comes time to butcher.  I guess time will tell how well we are able to deal with that process.  For now, we're just learning about what it takes to have a litter of rabbits to care for, especially in the cold.

Dawn also discovered rather disconcertingly that once they were out of the nesting box that they could easily fall out of the hutch.  After a nerve wracking chase of one little fella around the yard, she added a "rabbit retaining wall" to the door of the hutch to help retain the frisky kits.  Mom can be seen with three of the kits along with the retaining wall in the photo above.

Shannon and Dawn will be sharing their experiences with raising meat rabbits on Tuesday afternoons. They homestead on three acres in Louisiana when time off from life and working as a sys admin permits.