The baby bunnies are born!!! The baby bunnies are born!!!

It’s been about a month since we bred our rabbits, and the babies have started to show up. We are still new at this (as are the new mothers), and until recently, I hadn’t had rabbits since I was a young boy. I remember breeding them once and getting a bunch of cute little baby bunnies, but that’s about all that I remember about it.

At the @papa-pepper homestead, we already have five mature rabbits. Brownie, Polkadot, and Runaway are the sisters of Cookie, as they all came from the same little. We bought those four off of a neighbor boy earlier this year. Then, @smailer bought us a beautiful female Chinchilla Rabbit, that our children named Silver.

We bred Silver with Cookie about a month ago, and borrowed an unrelated male named Bugs from that same neighborhood boy to breed with Brownie and Polkadot. We did not breed Runaway yet, but will next time.

When I mentioned that we were breeding our rabbits, @gringalicious shared a little of her experience doing that with us. The one thing that stuck out in my mind from what she shared was, “Don’t be surprised if they eat their babies, especially if they are first time mothers.” That information was little disturbing and surprising to hear, but I’m glad that we could hear about that possibility ahead of time.

Many rabbits can have a hard time with motherhood when it is their first time. Some will neglect their young and others may even kill them. Usually, they will eventually grow out of it as they have more litters. So far, our young mothers have had mixed results.

Unfortunately, Polkadot had her litter about a week earlier that she was supposed to, and none of those little ones survived. She had also chewed on at least one of them, which is unfortunate, but not unheard of. Thankfully, this was her first time having a litter, and hopefully things will go better for her next time.

POLKADOT:

Polkadot has recovered well.

RUNAWAY:

We will try to breed Polkadot again when we breed Runaway.

BROWNIE:

Brownie has not yet had her litter...

SILVER (With COOKIE):

But Silver did!!!

So far, both the new mama and the four babies are doing excellent, which is good news for everyone!

To make sure that she would be keeping the little ones warm at night and to help us keep an eye on her, we moved the young family into the house with us for now.