I had an 8 month old Holland Lop cross female who has been quite nasty from the get go. She needed to be spayed but as I was recently unemployed the funds in my household are very strained, so I decided to try and rehome her with a rabbit savvy person. I am not new to rabbits, I have owned them many, many years.
I found a man who promised a good home and checked out when I asked him all the questions regarding proper care, and told him she needs to be spayed to quell her attitude. He agreed, he also agreed to give her back to me if she ever had to be rehomed.
3 weeks later I saw an ad for her on a local site. I was outraged. I contacted him and told him we had a verbal agreement and that if he was not satisfied with her or could not provide what he promised she would come back to me.
After a lot of B.S. and him yanking my chain, he finally agreed to sell her back to me for essentially more than I sold her to him for.
However, she gave birth on February 24 2010. When I backtrack the timeline, he bred her to god knows what when he and I were in negotiations to get her back.
She had 5 kits. Now, she was a good mother. Through my years of experience I have had kits, but never such a viscious mother.
Everything was okay until today. I got home from errands to find her overturning the nest box and basically “digging” at the kits, making them fly all over the cage. I took them out, and she continued her rampage of trying to destroy the nest box and attack the cage, digging and throwing wood pellets everywhere.
The kits are only 9 days old. They will not start eating solids for another 5 days. I do not know what to do – if I should buy KMR and attempt to feed them myself, or force hold the mother down and let them nurse (through I read that if the mother is stressed she won’t release milk), or do I put them back in there with her, where she will likely continue to attack them?
Please help, these kits are strong and I do not want to lose them.
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