Hot Chocolate and Bunny Love

During the autumn season I have been in the need of hot chocolate because of bunny love.

I am not a breeder. I don't aim to breed angora rabbits. We have 2 does and 2 males with the idea to increase the number of rabbits for our own purposes. That's why we separated the boys and girls already when they arrived and youngests were just 8 weeks old. We succeed in this for several months but on September the 26th 2014 happened the accident. Mr Rasputin himself was found in the girls box very tired but relaxed and extremely happy after having a wild party all night long. Ooops!

It meant two teenage pregnancies. Lulu and Viola were just 6 months and 4 days old when it happened. Their growth is not finished. They should be adult size before breeding. I actually consulted 4 vets to find out is there anything we can do and is it safe to go on with them and pregnancies. Each vet told it includes risks because they are not 100% mature yet but they told it is possible when the does are taken good care of.

Lulu had miscarriage. She did just fine and she is very healthy and has grew a lot since that. Viola has had harder times because of the pregnancy and having the litter. She too seems to deserve mugs of hot chocolate like every mom! Lulu is helping her a lot and she likes to be helped; like every mom.

But we had few worries because of the weather. As I told we are not breeders, we don't have factory made nesting boxes or nice things like that. We were in the middle of arctic autumn and are now stepping into the winter. 

That is why we did what country girls do. We offered them the possibilities to follow their natural instics.

We took the old dog box, opened it and had two nests like this. These are not best possible sollutions because we got just one doorway in each. There should be at least two doorways in the nest to make sure the doe can fool the predator and save the kits. And if you have two does there should be two doorways also because it offers another way out to avoid fights.

We offered them a lot of extra straw pellets, hay and raw sheep wool. Does pluck their own wool to build the nest. I wanted to avoid that and was thinking they do it for two resons; to get their own smell there and warm up the kits. For warming up I offered the sheep wool. We started to give them the materials for nest building two weeks after the accident and slowly but very fussy they both were building the nests. Also Lulu; who seemed to do what Viola did. She seemed not to have much clue about the whole thing but she was learning from Viola.

Day by day there started to form out a tunnel which lead to a chamber. The other nest they kept wide open and it started to look like already robbed one; it was a fake nest to fool foxes.

On the morning of October the 28th the nest was closed up and little bit of blood seen outside which they had not managed to clean up. We knew there was a litter inside. Viola was ok after the delivery and not confused at all.

But since that she has had hard days digging in and out two times in a day in the dark to take care of the little bunnies. She has been pampered a lot and had extra grooming because all that digging and cleaning make her so dirty. We have even shorthen her paw and neck hair to keep her tidier.

Only once I digged it a bit open to put my phone in and take a photo to see what is going on because I heard a terrible drumming inside and yes, there was Thumper. Just look at the aerodynamic position of its ears and legs ready for a jump! :)

On the morning of 17th, November, the mouth of the nest was open again.What cuties there were inside!

Today I opened the nests for the 1st time and cleaned them up. See how they have built them up in layers at the bottom. They have been able to keep it tidy and clean. Here I have already took away the hays and wool that formed out the roof of the tunnel and chamber.

A lot of wet hay was there but it all was put in two corners! Viola was extremely happy when she noticed what I was doing and laid down stretching and relaxing and keeping her kits away with Lulu to let me do my job! She really didn't worry at all. Rather she seemed to think "Finally some help from you fool!".

In the video Viola and Lulu are a bit messy but again they were groomed after cleaning the boxes.

In the litter there are 4 REW(Ruby Eyed White), 2 blue and 1 black kits.