This morning I was cold, tired, and none to alert until I heard thumping and scuffling from Halley and Comet's hutch. I immediately went over to check, and see them fighting. Now, I haven't seen rabbits fight much so I don't know how serious it was. I do know that when I gave the same sort of "Hey" I give when the dog is being a jerk, they stopped and stared at me. It is clearly dominance fighting, but we don't know what to expect in severity. If you look in the lower left you can see some fur that got ripped out. We're hoping it isn't too bad. To minimize the conflict we will be butchering their two brothers today, and moving the girls back to the bigger hutch so there is more room for them to not get in each other's way. On the up side, once I put food and water in they went to calmly eating next to each other again. Just a very startling and quick boost to high alertness!
On the other side of things, Dawn and Twilight should be ready to give birth any time now. Dawn's nest is all set and ready to go other than the fur layer. She seems satisfied with the level of hay, and has started eating instead of stashing it again. As you can see from these two pictures Right she is extremely pregnant. I believe the terms that fit best would be rotund, or gravid. The Lady of the House commented, quite accurately that she looks like a sausage with a head rather than the sleek bunny she usually looks like. She looks frankly miserable, and every time she hops, she gives the offended foot flick. Usually she only does that when I mess around with her things, or take food away from her. Lately movement causes offence. Having never had the dubious pleasure of being pregnant, I'm assuming it's rather painful and unpleasant having gained that much extra mass to drag around. It is hard to tell from the photos, but it is nearly impossible for her to get her roundness off the ground. Her belly is also wider than her haunches which just looks strange. I'm hoping she gives birth on the normal due date instead of her normal way late, for her sake.
Twilight on the other hand, while she has gained weight doesn't seem to be nearly so impeded. I'm really hoping she took, and isn't just taking advantage of me feeding her more since she's pregnant to get fat. She still hasn't made a nest, but I put down some cardboard in the private space so she has a good place to build when she chooses to do so. She still looks fairly sleek, but definitely had a big of roundness to her belly. I wonder if part of that is she's just a bigger rabbit than Dawn by a fair margin. There's also that she will likely have a smaller litter since this is her first breeding. We shall see, but the Lady of the House and I are greatly anticipating seeing the new babies. We are currently betting on whether or not she carries white. I'm betting yes, The Lady of the House is betting no just because she doesn't want her to. Either way, we will know in the next few days. I look forward to next Tuesday having baby photos to share with everyone. Of course, having said that both of them will hold off on giving birth 'till Wednesday out of spite.
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