SURPRISE! She was Pregnant! O_O

[Hokankai]

Well, the mama rabbit/three 6 week old babies I’ve been fostering have been doing great. Lately I’ve seen them sleeping on top of the house, and today I found out why. There are not 1, not 2, not even 5…but NINE newborn kits inside their home in a huge fur nest. I had NO idea she was pregnant!!! We’ve had them for about 3-4 weeks now. What on EARTH do I do?!?! I have no idea how to care for a mama rabbit and her now TWELVE babies!!!!! Holy Jeez. Hahahaha. Any and ALL advice would be much appreciated. Pictures will come once I get over the shock of it all.

[jerseygirl]

Contact the organisation you’re fostering for if you haven’t already. They should be helping you out with this. You might have to get them to take the older kits now. Ideally they’d stay with her for 8weeks but its prob too much stress on the mum to have all of them there.

Do create a spot she can go to away from all of them. So like a shelf type thing only she can jump too. She’ll only visit the newborns once or twice to feed. The older ones won’t need her around 24/7 either.

[Hokankai]

Yeah mama isn’t around the babies all the time, and the older kits are at the age where they don’t really care about mom anymore, so she’s okay. We let them out during the day for a couple hours and they all spread out around the room.

I wish someone would call me back, I’ve never had a humane society that was so hard to get a hold of. Oh well, hopefully I can get a hold of them tomorrow.

[bwild]

WOW what a surprise! Twelve is a lot to take care of. I remember when my cat, Mischief, had babies, she had 10 and that was hard enough, I couldn’t even imagine if there were two more! They are super adorable though!

[bunnyfriend]

Oh my goodness! That is a lot to take care of! Hopefully the humane society gets back to you soon and that advice from here gives you help in the meantime. They are so cute! (even though they’re naked ;P)

[jerseygirl]

Oh wow! They are very newborn. You have your hands full now. Hope you hear from the HS soon. Keep us updated.

[Hokankai]

Yep, we are officially in over our heads in rabbit fluff! Hahaha, oh well. Is there anything we really need to do at this point? Mama keeps running over to me like she wants food, but I’m not sure what she wants. She feels skinny now that there aren’t any babies in there! I also am questioning her being a New Zealand now as she is pretty small and lightweight.

[LBJ10]

Can’t you give mommy buns alfalfa-based pellets? That would have more energy in it for her.

 

By the way, they are very cute. Of course I think baby mice are cute too, even if they are all pink. Hopefully the rescue/humane society gets back to you.

[Hokankai]

I’ve tried, but I can’t find alfalfa based pellets ANYWHERE but online, and I really don’t have the money to pay for shipping. She has alfalfa hay blocks and alfalfa hay though, free choice.

[Monkeybun]

She needs free fed pellets right now to make milk to feed the babies. Make sure she gets lots

[Hokankai]

Oh they always have full bowls, don’t worry

[Monkeybun]

I know that usually mama buns only go to their babies a couple times a day, dusk and dawn, to feed babies. Maybe her running to you is her saying “Get me away from them!” Moms of any species need non-baby time after all

[Hokankai]

Hahaha perhaps!

[Monkeybun]

you may want to amke sure they have enough of mama’s fur around them to keep them warm too It gets chilly on a naked bun bum

[Hokankai]

Oh yes, they are covered! There’s a huge mound on top of them, that video was just when I took them out to count them and put a towel underneath them.

[Monkeybun]

ok good I worry about little ones, as you might have noticed

[jerseygirl]

Look at that little one on the move!

The alf hay and blocks should be enough with unlimited pellets. You might want to weigh her so you can keep an eye on her weight.

Also, since there are so many bubs, check them each day that the belly is full. The feeding is quick and not all of them might get their share.

[Beka27]

Oh man. How incredibly frustrating! Do you have any alternate phone numbers or emails for the HS. When you get ahold of them, I would tell them to take back mama and the babies. You can keep the 6-week-olds and work on socializing them. This litter is going to be way too much work.

Also, I know they are fosters, but please refrain from posting pics/videos of the babies (at least right now) as this is against the forum rules.

[Sarita]

Have you separated the first and second litter? You should do that. Poor Mama has got to be totally stressed out.

[RabbitPam]

 Hi, I hate to be the spoilsport of the group but I have to ask you not to post pictures. It’s one of the rules of the site, which I will copy here:

Accidental Litter:  Sometimes this happens and we will do our best to help the pregnant doe and/or babies by providing advice to the  best of our knowledge.  However, posting future baby photos will be prohibited unless it is in regards to a health or behavior question.  Posting photos of the babies just  to share the cute faces will not be allowed.  The reason for this is it draws people in to our site , via the search engines, to the subject of babies and breeding. (even though it was accidental).  We are focused on the individual rabbit and do not wish to encourage this subject for several reasons.  Again, please review FAQ .

That said, I understand you’re feeling overwhelmed, and hope that the group that you are fostering from will have a more experienced person available to assist you with this brood. Hang in there!

[Hokankai]

Whoops, I guess I was too overwhelmed to remember that rule. Ah well, I’ll take the pics down.

Anyway, there’s no way I have time to take the babies and mama back until next weekend (they’re 45 mins away). Should I just let mama do her thing and let nature take it’s course?
And no, the 3 older kits are not separated and won’t be because I don’t have anywhere to put them, so for now everyone’s together in my 4×4 pen/cage.

[Beka27]

Can you get a second xpen? It’s really important that the older ones be separated from the babies. Even just a makeshift enclosure out of NIC grids would work.

Mama will know what to do with the new babies. Sadly, she’s no stranger to kits. In the meantime, you can leave the babies alone, just make sure that mama has plenty of hay, veggies, pellets, and water accessible.

Have you been able to get ahold of the shelter yet? Please update us when you do.

[Hokankai]

Got a hold of the shelter finally, and they apologized for being hard to get a hold of. Ironically it was an email that got me a call back within half an hour! Ugh.

They want me to hold onto the three older kits and return mama and babies when I can. I’m a college student and the shelter is 45 minutes away, so I’m going to have to plan when I head up there. I think it’ll probably be next weekend or something like that because I don’t have time to go up there for awhile.

No I don’t have a second Xpen, but everyone gets reign of the room when we’re home, so I think it’ll be fine. The babies have been chilling on top of or inside of the house and mama doesn’t mind, so it’ll be fine.

[Monkeybun]

I dislike that rule Considering its a foster bun too, not a pet that got to another pet…. bah.

[Beka27]

One reason for the rule is because if someone Googles images for “baby bunnies!”, we don’t want Binkybunny coming up and then people misinterpreting the site as a place that promotes breeding. Also, members used to be able to post accidental litter pictures, but then the threads would become an avenue for providing photo updates, which seemed to glorify baby bunnies, and we don’t want to encourage that. It’s simpler to just have a “blanket rule” against baby bunny photos. We all obviously love bunnies or else we wouldn’t be here, and baby buns are impossibly cute, but there are other places online to look at those pics if you want.

[Hokankai]

So I’ve been doing some research and now I’m worried that mama is going to reject the babies once I take her to the shelter. I think I’m going to hold onto them for as long as I can and then bring them in. I just don’t want something like that on my conscience

[Sarita]

I would just take the first litter to the shelter and then the second when they are old enough.

[Hokankai]

They want the little ones back, it’s not really my call.They don’t adopt out young rabbits, so I’d be fostering until they’re old enough to be fixed.

I’m not sure what their plans are for the babies, but all I know is I don’t have the space or resources to care for that many for very long.

[Beka27]

I’m not very versed on caring for bunny litters, what is the danger in transporting them? The mother may reject them in a new place? If that’s it, you might want to work on transitioning them to a big box or the bottom of a large pet carrier that you can transport them in and leave at the shelter. I would think the familiar scent should help the mother.

I agree that the new litter needs to go back. The set-up you have currently is barely big enough for 3 bunnies long-term. It will work for now since they have plenty of exercise time, but there’s no way you have enough space for 9 babies and a mama bun. Like I said before, your effort will be better spent on littertraining the older buns and get them “socialized” for a new homes.

[RabbitPam]

Thanks for respecting the rule about baby bunny pix. Beka explained it well. MonkeyBun, you are a responsible bunny owner who appreciates bunnies without concern, but the result of the flurry of baby bunny “oops!” litter posts was that members were saying they wanted some, and wanted to just “see what it was like to have babies born” so it was inspiring some subsequent litters that were very questionable – the adult or teenaged bunnies were not being separated after all, and more and more appeared. It happened within a few months, so BB came down on the activity by stopping the pix and getting the details of the circumstances of each litter so we could separate the intentional ones from the accidental litters where the owner was in genuine distress. Unfortunately, the intentional litters led to distress very quickly as well, which led to trips to their local shelters, etc. etc. Putting that rule in place seemed to have an immediate beneficial effect, at least on the site. So thank you, ~KK~ for your response.

I wouldn’t worry about the mother rejecting the babies. I agree with Beka that you can make a travel box with the same nesting material and litter in it so they are on familiar bedding that smells like home while they go there. But I don’t think the mother will let it effect her now that she’s caring for them already. And if she does, it’s better for them because the rescue has the resources to feed and care for any babies that might be in distress. You would feel even worse if you needed to take over feeding and didn’t have the ability to buy or make the right food source to replicate what they get from their mother. There may even be a surrogate bunny available there to help her, so I would let them take over the litter for you.

[Hokankai]

Well, as an update, the babies are about a week old and all seem to be doing great. We check on them multiple times a day and they all seem to be getting fed well despite there being 9 of them. I’m planning on returning them and mama to the shelter once it feels like I’m swimming in rabbits, haha.

Despite this being an accidental litter, I’ve enjoyed watching them develop and change everyday

[Author]

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