We successfully mated our two does with our buck on September 30th. That was our second try mating Alice (pictured below) with him. She just ran away from him the first time. Rabbits almost always kindle 30-32 days after mating. On day 27 I put the nest boxes in each doe's cage. I planned on some Halloween kits, but did not see any the morning of the 31st. When we came back from co-op school that afternoon I saw 2 kits laying on the floor of Scarlett's cage and one had wiggled over into Alice's cage. I was terribly upset because one was in bad shape, but somehow still alive. After a lot of panicking type drama, I put the two that could possibly survive into the nest box and sent hubby to help the third off to a quick demise. Scarlett did not make a nest like she was supposed to. And she ignored the babies completely. They both died of starvation.
Alice on the other hand, had her babies some time Halloween night after we had gone in from trick-or-treating. She make a picture perfect fuzzy nest and had 8 babies. They have all been well-fed and well cared for by their mama. Alice got a treat every day until the babies started hopping out (day 17).
Here are some pictures from day 19:
All the babies eyes are open and they are hopping out of the nest box from time to time. Next week they will start eating some hay and pellets. Then they will slowly be weened around 6 weeks of age.
Two of the kits are already spoken for and I will begin advertising them on craigslist in a couple weeks. Hopefully, we can sell them all as show and pet rabbits. Any remaining will probably become roasters.
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