Mar 19, Pregnant rabbit who already has 4 week old babies

by Nichola
(Plymouth UK)

I bought 2 rabbits and was assured they were female, 4 weeks ago I opened the cage to find a litter of babies, after seeking advice we moved the mum and nest into a hutch indoors separating them from the now buck! All the babies are thriving. This morning day 30 or 31 the female doe went for me on entering the cage and she has started nesting again, she was becoming increasing agitated with her babies as they were jumping into the nest she was making, she started pulling fur from both herself and the babies, I have now removed them from the cage and mum is looking a bit calmer - will the baby rabbits be ok without mum, do they still need her milk even though they are eating hay and pellets?

I need some advice help!!!!

We are not sure if the first litter were born on a Friday or Saturday night as they were first noticed Sunday morning so potentially mum and dad were together for 24 hours after her giving birth :(

Any advice you can give will be most appreciated
Many thanks
xx

***** Karen Sez *****
Yeah, it happens! This page will help you figure out the genders of all your rabbits:

http://www.raising-rabbits.com/sexing-rabbits.html

In the meantime, you did fine to separate the kits, very important. The 4 week old kits will be just fine, and so will the doe. Only thing - extra hay for the 4-week kits to keep their guts healthy as they transition to life without mum, and extra high fat treats for the doe, as she will have to make lots more high-fat milk for the new litter. Feeding whole oats or black oil sunflower seeds (bird seed) will be great - a tablespoon per day. Double that when the new litter is 2 weeks old.

The page with all the links about taking care of the pregnant and lactating doe and her litter are here:

http://www.raising-rabbits.com/breeding-rabbits.html

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