The Latest

We've had a few bumps in the road with our youngest kits, but nothing too terrible. Hikari really just hasn't been on the ball this time around. I could tell she was trying, but wasn't getting enough milk to sustain 3 kits, and we had fostered off another so she only had 2 left. Unfortunately, I found them wet and cold in the nestbox yesterday. Here is a comparison of the nestboxes:

 It is hard to tell in the pictures, but Valkyrie has her box stacked to the top with fur and it is completely dry, soft, warm, and fluffy. Kari's nest is flat, drafty, wet, and has very little fur that is mostly mashed into the floor. Incidentally, these are traits I would be examining very closely if this was a doe in her prime as mothering skills are so important. Kari was an excellent mother when she was younger, but we don't really know what happens to does as they age. For all we know, hormones may have decreased, she could have health problems that are invisible to us, or whatever else.

So, I cleaned the 2 wet kits up and moved them over to Valkyrie's nest. She has been doing an ah-mazing job! She is super attentive and is full of milk presently. I still took Kari's singleton and 1 of Kurayami's out to nurse with Kari last night and this morning and she is willing to feed them, so that helps even if it isn't very much. I'm glad to see that everyone finally has fat bellies. The 2 that were with Kari have some catching up to do, but they made it this far so I think we may be coming out of the woods. It is so wonderful to have kits around again. I knew I missed it, but I didn't know just how badly until our litters arrived in December and I've been enjoying them so much ever since:

Here are pictures of the kits yesterday morning before everyone was seperated. This is Kari's kit and 1 of Kurayami's:

And here are Valkyrie's dynamic duo (a blue and a black) along with another blue from Kurayami's litter:

 

They are about a week old at this point, so looking forward to open eyes next!

In other news, Sunshine and Tacoma both did a great job with their litters! They will be 7 weeks old, so I will probably be officially weaning them (though I think they are unofficially weaned already) shortly. I think the "pirate" doeling is still the largest in Sunshine's litter and of course Jack is a beefcake. Next week we will do a serious 8 week evaluation and weigh-in. We may end up keeping more than just 1 or 2 if we can replace some of the older animals in our herd with the younger generation, but time will tell as to how they measure up. :)