Friday, February 6, 2015

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. :)

6 comments:

  1. I'm glad you've got the resources and the knowledge to make the best decisions for your litters! And at least you got one more out of your older ladies! That is always a plus.

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  2. I'm happy to hear Kari's babies are doing better! I remember her being a very good mom so I believe it's just age that is affecting her this time. :-)

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    1. I think you are 100% correct! I am curious to see if we bred any of the old does back of production would increase, but room is also going to be tight once we do our evaluations so I am not sure yet how it would work. I haven't had any e-mails inquiring about rabbits for adoption so I might list a few like Spock for adoption to a retirement home and see if we have any luck. I wish we had more room.. but maybe by this time next year we will. :)

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  3. Gorgeous kits! So glad everyone is doing well.

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  4. It is such a good idea to breed more than one doe at once so that you have a foster mother if needed! That would be a very good idea for us to use as well. I have read that Silver Foxes make excellent foster mothers, so we may attempt it with Elvy if anything goes wrong regarding another doe's litter

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