Hi,
I literally joined 2 min ago. Sorry that my first post is a desperate plea for guidance!
We have 3 mini lops, 2 boys and a girl. They are sibs. We got them at Xmas and they were 8 weeks old. Took them to the vet early jan and booked in for vax and neutering for the boys. Vet said wait to spay the female until she is 6-9months old.
The boys bits had not dropped until a month ago and they went in for neutering What I thought was pretty much straight away. I clearly was not paying enough attention because my children went to feed them this morning and came back into the house shrieking about baby bunnies.
So the female appears to have given birth last night some time to 4 lovely little kits. The males would not stop trying to mount her this morning and were fighting with each other.
Quick google search led me to remove the males to the exercise pen for the day while I figured out what to do. I have now put the female and her babies into a big old dog crate, lined it with cardboard to create sound buffering and darkness and they are currently in my living room. I used a low plastic crate as a nest box, filling it with wood shaving (super soft, no spiked bits) and straw and transplanted the nest she made into it. The boy’s are back in the run.
I have now ordered a second hutch which will be here tomorrow if the gods of yodel approve.
If I understand correctly I will need to keep the boys and the girls separated but close by for the next couple of weeks. Is that correct even where the males have now actually been neutered (they are now 3 weeks post op)? If I count back I think they must have had 1 week at the most of unbridled passion before the vet intervened.
I was worried the constant attempts to mount her would hurt her given her post partum status and wondered if her newly fertile status would wear off and the males might stop this aggressive behaviour if they were allowed back into the same space. Is there anything I can do to discourage it? I understand the males are not a threat to the kits.
Any help is very greatly appreciated.
Cheers
Carolyn
*typing on phone so apologies for weird spelling mistakes and typos.
I literally joined 2 min ago. Sorry that my first post is a desperate plea for guidance!
We have 3 mini lops, 2 boys and a girl. They are sibs. We got them at Xmas and they were 8 weeks old. Took them to the vet early jan and booked in for vax and neutering for the boys. Vet said wait to spay the female until she is 6-9months old.
The boys bits had not dropped until a month ago and they went in for neutering What I thought was pretty much straight away. I clearly was not paying enough attention because my children went to feed them this morning and came back into the house shrieking about baby bunnies.
So the female appears to have given birth last night some time to 4 lovely little kits. The males would not stop trying to mount her this morning and were fighting with each other.
Quick google search led me to remove the males to the exercise pen for the day while I figured out what to do. I have now put the female and her babies into a big old dog crate, lined it with cardboard to create sound buffering and darkness and they are currently in my living room. I used a low plastic crate as a nest box, filling it with wood shaving (super soft, no spiked bits) and straw and transplanted the nest she made into it. The boy’s are back in the run.
I have now ordered a second hutch which will be here tomorrow if the gods of yodel approve.
If I understand correctly I will need to keep the boys and the girls separated but close by for the next couple of weeks. Is that correct even where the males have now actually been neutered (they are now 3 weeks post op)? If I count back I think they must have had 1 week at the most of unbridled passion before the vet intervened.
I was worried the constant attempts to mount her would hurt her given her post partum status and wondered if her newly fertile status would wear off and the males might stop this aggressive behaviour if they were allowed back into the same space. Is there anything I can do to discourage it? I understand the males are not a threat to the kits.
Any help is very greatly appreciated.
Cheers
Carolyn
*typing on phone so apologies for weird spelling mistakes and typos.
