Keeping Rabbits: Our First Litter

Unschooling Urban Farming

Just A Handful Of Bunny

We've been keeping rabbits for about 6 months now, and just got our first litter 2 weeks ago. Baby bunnies, adorable little things, are called kittens. When they're first born they look neither like kittens nor like rabbits. In their first days they look something like tailless newborn mice, then they progress to looking like miniscule, furred baby hippos. At last, after a couple weeks, you see the rabbit in them. They don't open their eyes for almost 2 weeks, and are born hairless but super soft.

A Healthy Kitten At Ten Days Old

We've all heard the myth that you can't touch baby rabbits or the mom will abandon them, but fortunately a friend of mine refuted that one, letting me know that she makes it a point to handle her kittens from the beginning so that they are always comfortable with people. 

Now, like all myths, there might be some truth to this one. I would not let anyone handle kittens that the mama rabbit is not super comfortable with. If the mother trusts you, she will not consider your smell strange even on her babies. Rabbits can be very feisty though, and mother rabbits that have just kindled are especially protective and suspicious of activity around their babies. Azula is such a good mother; even though she is friendly with us, she did actually bite Nik once when he pulled his arm out of the nest too fast. We learned it's best to be slow and calm around a new mother!

Azula, looking out for her babies- or maybe just waiting for some fresh greens.

Since kindling, Azula is always ready to eat, so whenever we want to check on the babies we give her a bunch of fresh, wild greens to distract her. While she calmly nibbles, we can reach into the nest box to count the babies and check how they are doing. One thing that must be checked for is dead babies, or babies that are separate from the rest because, especially before their fur comes in, they need to be close to each other to stay warm.

One day Nik discovered that the tiny runt of the litter was cold and stiff. We had naively thought that since he had made it to 10 days old, he would be OK, but all of his brothers and sisters were 3 or 4 times his size, and he was just not keeping pace! Nik thought this baby, who we called Runty, was dead, but as he carried him, Runty moved his head very slowly. Nik tenderly brought him in and we cuddled him and gave him drops of warm goat milk. 

Many gentle hands cradled Runty.

He responded well to the food, at first eating very slowly and eventually eating more and more quickly. He revived, warmed up, and had quite an appetite! To keep him warm and still have my hands free, I carried him around inside my shelf bra. He slept quite comfortably there.

I noticed he never went potty, so I did some research and found that a mother rabbit licks the genitals of her babies after they nurse, to get them to urinate. An adoptive caregiver can use a warm washcloth or even a wet finger. When I tried this, nothing happened. Later, Nik tried it and got Runty to poop, the teeniest, tiniest rabbit poops ever.
 

We could only love him.

I put him back in my shirt, where he slept and occasionally wiggled against me, like a baby in the womb. Baby rabbits nurse only once or twice a day. I cannot even imagine how this gives them enough nutrition to survive and thrive, or why it's biologically advantageous for the mother to feed them so infrequently, but apparently that's all they need and all their moms will abide. We fed Runty more often than this; he was, after all, so very small. He had a lot of catching up to do.

Feeding him was a two person job. Nik would hold him in position, with Runty's mouth to the sky, while I controlled the milk flow from a needle-less syringe. It would have been easier with a simple eyedropper, but the syringe was all we had. It was hard to control how much milk came out. While I tried to feed him only a drop at a time, more than once I got him with a big spurt as the plunger jumped inside the syringe. We wiped him clean, and he seemed unfazed. It was glorious to watch him eat, to feel his tiny belly filling out.

With Runty being so very, very tiny we were at a loss for where he should spend the night. He seemed to need more warmth than his own fragile body could produce. If he were anywhere near the size of the rest of his littermates, we would have returned him to his family in the nest for the night, but we knew he'd just get pushed out again. Maybe rabbit moms know more than we do about what it takes to survive in this world.

He was too small to co-sleep with us giants, though I wanted to try. Nik set up a heating pad on the lowest possible setting, in a cozy nook on our floor. Runty did not survive the night. At least, I believe, he died warm, well fed, and feeling loved.

We knew his chance of survival was slim, small as he was, and nearly dead already when we found him. We buried him next to the garden, and the children placed some of their treasured safety glass fragments on his eyes, because they heard how in some cultures people send loved ones off with coins on their eyes. Little Runty never even opened those tiny eyes.

Odin & I hold one of our remaining 9 kittens.

Two weeks old now, the rest of the litter is hopping around their nest box, eyes open to the world, even nibbling on things here and there, like the burlap lining their nest, the wood frame, and the occasional leaf of wild greens. Their intrinsic need to chew is apparent. One brave little bunny frequently leaves the nest box to find his mother in the outer cage. When he finds her and tries to nurse, she hops away to the top of the nest box, her private area. Momma bunnies need their space. The baby doesn't seem to get his feelings hurt. He nibbles on things on his way back to his buddies in the nest.

Two weeks ago, we could barely see the babies under all their mother's fluff.

Does that are about to kindle will line the nest box with fur from their bellies. In the first days, we had to strain to see them as they slept under all their mother's protective fluff. After 2 weeks the babies have pushed the fluff out of the box and are hopping around the box, spending most of their time sleeping right near the opening of the nest. They are not hiding anymore! By 16 days, they have all ventured out of the nest, and the mom gets no peace unless she's up on top of the nest box. Soon they'll be eating solid food and she might catch a break.

Azula & Katara in their carefree, pre-pregnancy days.

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Keeping Rabbits: Our First Litter

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Oleh Mellow

Mellow June 11, 2012 48 Comment