January litters

Several litters born last week. After losing so many in December due to the cold I decided we were bringing nestboxes in this time. So every night we bring the boxes in the house to stay warm and take them back out in the morning so Mommas can nurse their babies. It did warm up so we can leave them out more during the day, but we are still bringing them in every night.

Cybil's 3 Hollands born on Jan 18 are doing great. looks like a broken black and two REWs.

Sasha, a Silver Fox had 8 on Tues Jan 19 in the morning.

Blue Belle is a spas Holland- she is always flying around her cage so I was concerned about breeding her in the first place. She delivered 3 Tues night, but 2 were peanuts. Peanuts are a result of breeding two true dwarf rabbits - the kits get a double dwarf gene and rarely live for more than a few days. The good thing is that now I know Blue Belle and Dare Devil are both true dwarfs!

Sylvia, Silver Fox, had 3 live kits Wed morning, and several more dead ones throughout the day, I think we found 9 total. By the end of the day there were only 2 still with us.

Wednesday night I was trying to decide what to do, I knew Blue Belle was not taking care of hers like I wanted and I was worried that the two peanuts wouldn't be enough mass to keep the other kit warm. I decided that Thursday we would need to do some fostering, but I was too late. All three of Blue Belles were gone Thurs am. We also decided to foster some of Sasha's 8 to Sylvia to even their loads out. Anybody have a good way to mark black kits whewn you foster them?!? Usually we mark the ears, but their ears are black and nothing shoews up! We colored a front foot, hope we can still find it!

Emme, Onawa, Google, and Lucy all missed- so they are re-bred now. Diana just weaned a litter and Blue Belle lost hers, so I will re-breed both of them next week. So hopefully more babies in February! I like to have at least 2 does due the same day so you have back-up in case something happens. So far it is working very well, as long as I decide quickly enough what to do! So many lessons to learn.