Rabbit Fail

Our doe, Flower, finally had a large litter of kits. We were happy to see that most, if not all were living and that she seemed to be a good mother.

Unfortunately, Flower refused to build her nest in the nest box and instead built in on the wire floor. She pulled some fur, but not a lot, and when the weather turned cold and extremely windy, all of her kits died.

I'm annoyed. Her first pregnancy was a miss, the second was stillborn and now this fiasco. I'm going to get her a different nesting box, but I really do not enjoy cleaning out or even seeing lifeless, hairless baby bunnies. They are even worse to touch.

Flower and Bowling Pin will be spending some quality time together soon. I am hoping that she gets her act together with this next litter because if she doesn't, I will start exploring other options. Like roast.

On a related note, we have a Flemish Giant doe named Fiona who has an attitude the size of Texas. My original plan was to breed her to Bowling Pin, our Californian, so that we'd have a cross for meat. Actually, my original plan before that was to keep her as a pet in the house, however I discovered that I am allergic to rabbits and that Fiona enjoys chewing cords way too much to be kept out of a cage. Anyway, I put Bowling Pin in Fiona's cage last month and she about killed him. She had backed him into a corner and was throwing a fit. Fiona was nasty for several days afterwards.

I honestly thought this rabbit thing would be easy, but we ended up with two silly does and one doe who is a great mother and nest builder, but older and a little too skinny for me to be comfortable breeding her.