Baby bunny questions

[zenbofive]

So recently I discovered my neutered, male mini rex Fiver was neither male not neutered. I got her from a rescue that lost a lot of her documents as she was bumped around. My vet confirmed her to be male as well, so I didn’t take as much care ensuring she was separate from my other rabbit until he was neutered as I would have had I known she was not a boy. My definitely male rabbit of unknown origins and she had a litter of three little nuggets, and I discovered them when they had a little bit of fur on. As such, I’m not 100% sure on their birth date. Ironically, he is scheduled to be neutered this month.

One of them opened one eye today on their own, after some googling about whether or not that was normal I assisted with the opening of the second. My question is the other 2 haven’t opened their eyes and when I massaged a little and the area, there was no give like with the first one. Is it normal for litter mates’ eyes to open on different days?

Thank you for any help you can give

[DarthVadar]

Rabbit kits open their eyes around 10 days old (10, 11, or 12, to be exact). They very rarely have trouble opening their eyes, so I would NOT advise trying to help them. If done improperly, this could cause permanent damage to the eye. Are the kits in some sort of nest box? At 18 days, so in about a week, they need to be out of it. Rabbit nests are clean, but not sterile, and babies that stay in there too long risk getting nest eye. Good luck with surprise bunnies!

[tobyluv]

I don’t know anything about baby bunnies opening their eyes, but I agree that they are probably best left alone to do that on their own.

If your male and female were still together when you discovered the babies, it’s very likely that the female is pregnant again. They can get pregnant immediately after giving birth. I assume that they are being kept separately now, and hopefully they have not been together since she gave birth. Rabbits can also manage to mate through cage bars, so their cages cannot be touching on another. And, males can still be fertile for a few weeks after their neuters, so it’s not safe for them to be together for a while after his neuter. For them to be together at all, you will need to have the female spayed, then after a few weeks, you can begin the bonding process. The male would have been neutered and recovered by then too.

Here are 2 good articles on bonding:

https://rabbit.org/faq-bonding-multiple-rabbits/

https://binkybunny.com/BUNNYINFO/tabid/53/CategoryID/9/PID/940/Default.aspx

Lastly, the 3 babies will need to be separated when they are around 12 weeks of age, since rabbits can start reproducing that young and since rabbits entering puberty are likely to fight and may injure each other. It doesn’t matter if they are siblings, or what gender they are, they can still get aggressive and fight.

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