Suburban Homesteading: February Rabbit Babies

We've had a lot going on in our little rabbitry. We had three litters born back in December. Unfortunately we lost quite a few of them After research and talking to other rabbit breeders I think that it has to do with their early and abrupt weaning. Their mothers decided at 4 weeks that they were done and were actually charging and snapping at the babies when they went to nurse. The "diagnoses" is called weaning enteritis. I made their diet partly pellets but mostly oats and hay. As long as that was their diet, they did well. If I increased the pellets in the ratio (thinking that they were old enough), we'd lose a baby or two. So, that's the diet they will have until they are old enough to process (next month). There was a pretty solid black baby doe that I was considering keeping. She loved to snuggle under my chin (picture below). We lost her one day when she decided to run up my shoulder and jump off. :'(

The mamas: Mopsy, Flopsy, Flora, and Beatrix

 

Since the babies had been weaned for awhile, I decided to rebreed the mamas in early January. We rotated the boys in the run for a few weeks. I was hoping for 4 litters since Flora was old enough to breed now. However, that didn't happen. On the evening of Feb. 11th Beatrix have birth to 8 kits. That night something spooked the animals. The mama rabbits, the chickens and the weaned rabbits took notice around 9:00pm. The chickens began making alert bawks (if you have chickens, you know this sound!) so I ran to the window. I saw them looking and bawking at the gate to the side yard. The weaned kits were standing at attention in the pen, also looking at the gate. The mamas were running around, standing at attention, looking at the gate and thumping their hind legs. I continued to keep watch while hubby got ready to go outside. I never saw anything and he didn't see anything once he got outside. Who knows what it was but it sure did frighten the animals. The next morning I found 5 more kits scattered around the run, obviously dead. I'm just assuming that they were Beatrix's but could have been Flora's or Flopsy's. We'll never really know b/c neither Flora nor Flopsy had a litter afterwards. Mopsy, however, did have a litter overnight on the 17th. She had 12 kits (1 of which was a stillborn). I couldn't believe she had so many! Unfortunately, I discovered the rest had passed 2 days later. My best guess is she abandoned them but don't know why. In this time we also lost 3 of Beatrix's. Good news is the remaining 5 are doings great. They are now 2 weeks old and have started opening their eyes!! The other 3 mamas have been rebreed and hopefully are due at the end of March.

Beatrix and her kits:

 

This is a sight I had not expected. Henrietta, our Easter Egger hen laid one of her pretty blue eggs in the nest with Beatrix's kits.

And I can't write a post about our rabbits and leave out our house rabbit, Thumper. He's a snuggler...who has taken to licking me. Strange rabbit!

© Mama Dani's Musings

Other places to find me:
Facebook: Mama Dani's Musings ~ Twitter: Mama Dani Blog ~ Pinterest
Feedburner Or subscribe by email (on sidebar)
My Etsy Shop: Made By Mama Dani

Don't forget to leave a comment below. ;)

I'm Back - Daycare - I Am Project

I have missed blogging. I probably could have made time for blogging but haven't. Any ways, I've realized that I've missed it and am back. Today I was thinking that it may be a little difficult to blog about the kids without including what goes on in my home daycare too. Therefor, you'll see some new faces. I will only post pictures of children who I have permission from their parents to do so. I will also avoid using their names and instead just use their initial.

I guess I will start with a little daycare update. For the last 2 years my daycare has been full or close enough where I wasn't looking to fill a spot (like when I had a part time opening). In this time, I did have a couple kids leave (started school) and a couple join but that all happened without me advertising. I've even had to turn people away in that time. I've been blessed! This pass December I got notice from 2 families within weeks of each other telling me that they would be moving. I was saddened with both announcements. We miss those kids. After getting notice from just the first one, I had decided to not advertise the openings. I didn't need to have those spots filled right away and had decided to enjoy a lesser work load for awhile. Plus, the other mom was pregnant so this would keep a spot open for her baby. However, after the second notice I knew I had to start advertising. Things would just be too tight for my liking with just one family. The one family I was left with was D's family. D has been with me for over 2 years now. I've watched him grow since he was an infant. As a matter of fact, D's mom had recently had a baby. D's baby brother, T, will eventually be joining us. I can't wait! So, I'm currently working on finding the right family (or 2) to join us...but haven't found them yet. For now, I'm enjoying the more one-on-one time I'm having with Sean, Maddy, Emily, and D.

Last week I discovered the facebook page, I am. I love their message and accepted their challenge. The pictures below are from that challenge. I'm going to take it a bit further here. I posted these pictures on my daycare's facebook page and mentioned that it's just the tip of the ice burg about these awesome kids. I'm going to tell you about the rest of that ice burg here.

Sean is: smart, a leader, a helper 

Maddy is: creative, determined, unique 

Emily is: silly, an entertainer, energetic 

D. is: caring, imaginative, a music lover

© Mama Dani's Musings

Other places to find me:
Facebook: Mama Dani's Musings ~ Twitter: Mama Dani Blog ~ Pinterest
Feedburner Or subscribe by email (on sidebar)
My Etsy Shop: Made By Mama Dani

Don't forget to leave a comment below. ;)

New Product Announcement: Headbands

Today I added a few new products on my Etsy shop: Made By Mama Dani. I now have knitted headbands for sale. These are fun to make. I have a green headband with a pink and brown flower, and a purple/blue headband with a white and blue flower up for sale. I also made a listing for custom made headbands. You pick the color of the headband, the flower, and the button, and tell me the size you need. The blue/white/yellow headband at the bottom was made for Maddy. I need to make another for her because she was upset when I told her I was making the other headbands to sell. She loves her accessories!!

© Mama Dani's Musings

Other places to find me:
Facebook: Mama Dani's Musings ~ Twitter: Mama Dani Blog ~ Pinterest
Feedburner Or subscribe by email (on sidebar)
My Etsy Shop: Made By Mama Dani