my rabbit has had babies. help please

hiya...can someone help me...i have three rabbits. i thought all were girls. when i got up this morning and went out to feed them i found that their were baby rabbits in the hutch. i have found which rabbit is the male and seperated him. but i cannot tell which of the other two rabbits is the mother to the bunnies. have picked them both up and both have nipples showing. is it ok to levae both of the female rabbits in the hutch with the baby rabbits? please let me know thanks.

xdanielle86x said:

hiya...can someone help me...i have three rabbits. i thought all were girls. when i got up this morning and went out to feed them i found that their were baby rabbits in the hutch. i have found which rabbit is the male and seperated him. but i cannot tell which of the other two rabbits is the mother to the bunnies. have picked them both up and both have nipples showing. is it ok to levae both of the female rabbits in the hutch with the baby rabbits? please let me know thanks.

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I am sorry to be the bearer of bad news but if the male was in the hutch at the time of the birth you may well have a second litter on its way. Plus if its two females you have then odds are the other is pregnant too.

Were none of them neutered?

You really need to try and find out which is the mother and then separate them. I am not sure how you tell so hopefully someone else will be able to help.

if you look at both does vulvas, the mother one will probabily be swollen and she may have traces of blood around her back end. does one of them look thinner than yesterday? if so she would be the mother. hope you work everything out.

I guess if they were similar ages, both the does could have had babies :? how many kitts in total are there?
Unfortunately as Rachie j says, your does are likely to be pregnant again if the buck was not removed as soon as the kitts were born.
Does are fertile straight after birth so keep an eye out in another 28 days or so's time, you could have more arrive. If you do the older kitts will have to be removed and put in a hutch of their own separate from bopth parents.
In the meantime your does will need alot of extra food if they are lactating, unlimited pellets and hay 24/7.
I would take your buck to be neutered asap.
Good luck with the litte'uns.

hiya. thanks for your replies. the two females are 8 monthes old. there are only four baby rabbits. have had a look at both the females and ones tummy is really big but the other is thin. will the thin one be the mum? also her nipples look quite red (unlike the other females). if i cannot tell for sure tonight, is it ok to leave both females together till i do know for sure? (sorry, not experienced with baby rabbits at all).

Yes the thin one will be the mum is she wasnt thin yesterday. I would take the other one out as either she will give birth as well and then you wont know whos babies are whos and they might kill each others babies or the one without babies will kill the babies.

Hmmm I think you will need to separate them as if the other has a large belly I would bet that she is soon to give birth too.

The one who is mum to the 4 you have at the minute should have plucked some fur from her dew lap (underneath her chin) to line the nest, if you inspect them both one of them will prob have little patches of fur missing if she is the mum too.

If you separate one of you females out (the one with the larger belly?) and leave the other in with the babies you must check the babies and make sure their bellies are round not sunken and wrinkled, full bellies means they are being fed by mum and so you have left the right doe in with them. Sunked wrinckled bellies would indicate they are not being fed, (perhaps wrong doe removed)

Rabbits only feed their young once or twice a day and the rest of the time may appear to ignore the nest (this is instinctual, they will try not to draw attention to the nest so as to not encourage predators) so dont worry if your doe appears not to show much interest in them, so long as the baby bellies look full she will be feeding them overnight.

You need to make sure your other doe is somewhere secure and has plenty of bedding etc and a place where she can safely build a nest as I wuld bet she is pregnant too.

Obviously they both must be kept well away from your newly discovered buck!

I was just wondering where you got your rabbits from as if it was a large petstore you may have some come back on them if they said they had sold you 3 does and as it turns out they aren't.

These pregnancies are quite possible going to cost you quite alot of money and perhaps heartache to get through now as it is also very possible that your doe that has already given birth may be pregnant again. You are going to need alot of extra accomodation to keep your two does and buck separate for now and also in about 8/10 weeks time to keep any male babies separate from any females and then if a 2nd litter is born, space to accomodate them too.

If they were bought from a large store its possible that you could get some help from the store with these needs/costs perhaps.

Unfortunately if they came from a small store or from a 'backyard' breeder you are unlikely to have any come back at all.

On another note, Have any of your bunnies seen vets since you got them? I dont mean to go on but I just think its an important point to make that if more people, when they got new bunnies, booked them into a vet to have the sex confirmed (though there are non rabbit savvy vets that have been known to get this wrong) then such situations could be avoided.

Also we are heading into the season where rabbits are at high risk of myxomatosis. Are any of your rabbits vaccinated? If not I would advise you phone your vet and get their advise on this as I'd hate any of them to contract myxo on top of all of this.

Perhaps calling your vet may be a good thing anyway and just get their advise on what to do. Do you feel confident your vet is rabbit savvy? If not if you tell us approximately where you are someone here may be able to point you in the direction of a good one local to you.

Sorry to go on, I hope some of what I've put is helpful and of course what's done is done, but situations such as this are difficult for all involved, your bunnies and for you, and sometimes they can be avoided if more research is done before people get their pets.

However like I say I dont mean to have a go, whats done is done and I wish you lots of luck with them all x

Well, I have seen a tonne of threads by 'New Kits' on this subject (do a search on 'babies') but never before where there may be two mums. Good luck!

It may be worthwhile thinking about what you will do with the babies. Obviously, they will need good homes so you could ring your local rescue centres and ask them for advice/help. You really don't want to sell them or give them to anyone without proper checks first or they could end up as snake food or sitting in a tiny hutch by themselves. You have a few weeks to think about that still at least.

Good luck!

Emma

I would just like to say before you panic(!!) that I couldn't tell which doe was mum when my free ad litter was born. I lost one kit, but the other 6 were raised successfully,both does together, & were about 4 weeks old before I saw one feeding the kits. It's not standard practice, but I decided to leave them together (after getting a vet nurse to confirm both were girls!!) as I was terrified of removing Mum by mistake.

That said, the other female may well be pregnant too.