I'm afraid there won't be any this time round. It was my does first litter and it hasnt gone well. She started kindling but there was still no babies after a few hours so I suspected that something might have been amiss. There was blood in her toilet area and she was having contractions but was moving around the cage rather than staying in the nest box. Went to check on her and saw her kit being born, she gave birth to a single large kit straight onto the floor of the hutch, they after birth came with it at the same time. The kit wasn't breathing so I tried to revive it, grabbed some of mums fur from the nest box (which she had lined beautifully) and used it to rub the baby. I was doing this for about 5 mins before giving up, then a took a good look at the kit, thats when I saw that mum had bitten its back feet off.
She seems to be fine now, has gone to the toilet and has eaten/drank since giving birth. My theory is that as it was one single large kit it must have got stuck and mum got distressed and tried to pull it out.
Breeding the rabbits for meat and fur was meant to be my first toe in the water of the great smallholding lake. I am so gutted and feel like I've fallen at the first hurdle. I did loads of research and don't know what I could have done differently. I was also relying on this litter to give me a new doe which would be unrelated to the buck i have so i'd have an unrelated trio. Oh well, I guess we'll just try again...
Topic: Found - Chinchilla Rex Breeding stock - Nr Birmingham/Bedford (Read 5176 times)