requesting advice for a new mum

Hello from Toronto, Canada. I apologize for not introducing myself properly in the Introductions forum. I wanted to put my question to you as soon as I could. I would like to hear from anyone with experience caring for a new mum and her kits.

Please note - I am not a breeder, nor am I dealing with an intentional birth. We are rescue fostering a stray rabbit who turned out to be pregnant.

Hazel came to us just over two weeks ago. A neighbour had posted to a Facebook group about a stray rabbit who was living in an alley behind a row of restaurants in downtown Toronto. We went straight away to look for her and collect her. She let me approach and pet her, so I picked her up quite easily and brought her home. She clearly had been someone's pet and was dumped - most likely an Easter purchase who turned out to be too much work. I can't believe that people still do things like that.

In any case, she's in good hands now. I have previously had a pet house rabbit who lived to over 11 years of age, so I'm familiar with rabbit behaviour, feeding, etc... We currently have two small dogs, so long term, having a pet rabbit is not right for us. We contacted a local rabbit rescue, who have accepted her into their adoption program. We are fostering her until they find her a suitable home. She currently lives cage free, in a spare bedroom on the upper floor of our home. She is an exceptionally friendly and curious rabbit.

We had her vet checked the same day we took her in, and the vet did not notice that she was pregnant. We allow her free run of our upper floor, to exercise for a short period each day while our dogs are gated on the main floor. We first suspected that Hazel might be pregnant when she stole one of our dogs' blankets and brought it in to her room. She did not show any other hormonal signs, and was not territorial, or doing any nest building, so we weren't sure. Checking the usual internet sites, we concluded that she might be having a false pregnancy or just simply adjusting to her new home.

The rescue had booked her in to be spayed today. Yesterday she started acting strangely, and sure enough she delivered 11 (!) kits. One was stillborn, and another died shortly after being born. A third passed overnight last night, so she now has a litter of 8. Today her nesting instincts are finally kicking in, which brings me to my concern.

This morning I went in her room to clean her litter. She was in her nesting box, fussing with the blanket, and pulling out her fur. I didn’t think much of it at the time, knowing that this is normal nesting behaviour. A few minutes later, I went back to her room since she seemed agitated - scratching at the wall and pushing her litter box around. I knelt down to move it back to the corner and she jumped up on my knee (which she had not done before). I noticed that she had a tuft of her pulled fur stuck under her chin. She then laid down against the wall and was fast/shallow breathing. I pulled the bit of fur from her chin, and the fur kept coming. I pulled more and more from her mouth - it was like one of those clown acts with handkerchiefs that keep coming. There was a lot of it, and I realized this might be why she was agitated. I dipped my finger in her water bowl and put a drop of water on her mouth just to get her some moisture. Then came more fur! I couldn’t believe how much she had in there - it was literally a fist full. I think I managed to pull it all out. I gave her one of her favourite strawberry treats to make sure she was able to eat, and she was. I checked on her about a half hour later and she was sitting up at her bowl, eating. So she seemed fine. But it was a shocking amount of fur that I pulled from her mouth.

About an hour later, the she repeated the same cycle of behaviour. Again I assisted her, and this time there was not as much fur, but still a substantial amount. My question is this: Should I keep intervening? Or will she eventually figure out how to spit out the fur on her own? We've been trying to leave her alone as much as possible so that she can rest and do what she needs to do for her kits. But this behaviour makes me think that we should be keeping a closer eye on her.

Here is a photo showing the amount of fur that I removed from her mouth the first time. The second time yielded about half of this again.



Thank you in advance for any help or advice you are able to offer.

I'm not sure what advice to give. But keep a close eye on her. Someone will be along soon who can help xx

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What type of set-up do you have her and the kits in ? It may be better to confine her to an enclosure with a safe hidey-hole/nest box rather than have her free ranging around an entire room. She needs to feel safe and secure and whilst lots of space is generally lovely for Rabbits a recently acquired stray who has now just given birth may find it less stressful to be in a smaller secure area for a while. Have you put the fur on the kits' nest (as long as it's not wet from when you used some water to aid removing it from her mouth) ?

Does can get a large amount of fur into their mouth and they will often run about with it, scrabble at things with their front feet and sort of push the ground away from themselves with their front feet. In the absence of soil or something similar they will attempt to push carpet/rugs/anything toward the kits nest. Novice mothers may just push the ground in all directions.

Her fast breathing was probably due to both physical and psychological stress. As long as her respiratory rate is not normal again I would not be overly concerned. If it were to be ongoing that would merit an urgent consultation with a Vet.

I would not continue to remove the fur from her mouth unless she is obviously in trouble. A degree of apparent 'agitation' is normal with a Doe who has just kindled. Especially a young/inexperienced/first time mother.

You may find it useful to take a look at this thread :

http://forums.rabbitrehome.org.uk/showthread.php?327923-Accidental-Litters-and-Taking-on-Babies

Good luck with you unexpected Foster Family !!

Thank you for the advice and reassurance.

I did read the linked thread, as well as many others here before posting. There is a lot of very helpful information here for which I'm grateful.

The kits are nested in a shallow box, about 18" x 24". The box contains the aforementioned blanket, as well as all of the fur. After extracting it from her mouth, I did place it in the nest (and it was dry). She later went in to the box and arranged it all to her liking.

I'm glad you talked about the scrabbling/pushing behaviour. She was doing some of that this afternoon. Unfortunately, the only material she was able to excavate was her litter box. She has little fits of activity, then she flops over and does her fast breathing for several minutes. But she always returns to normal after a while. She has not pulled any more fur (from what I can tell), so I think we may be past that stage. I was mostly worried that she may end up swallowing some of it and that it might cause an intestinal blockage.

Here is her nesting box. This was yesterday, just a few hours after kindling:



And yes, we have moved the water bowl away from the nesting box, based on advice found on this forum.


And here are the kits in their nest today:

Hello again.

Checking in on the litter this morning, I noticed that there was one kit who is smaller than the rest and looking wrinkly. With 8 in the nest, it's not surprising that there is some competition at feeding time, and this one is obviously losing out. Should we attempt to encourage a solo feeding - segregate mum and runt to see if anything happens? Or is it best to just let nature take its course in these cases?

Taking into consideration the largish litter, I would let nature take its course personally.