Late post, and lots going on.

 Sorry for the delayed post, computer problems can be a time consuming difficulty. On the homestead though, things are going well. Not a whole lot of new work got done due to the rain all weekend long preventing work on the hutch or digging beds, but the garden is looking good for it.

Ups and Downs

 Dawn is doing fairly well in the wake of giving birth to her second litter. She has been a little nervous and jumpy lately, but has been a good mother to her 5 babies. The main signs of her nervousness is trying to dig at the cage and occasionally chewing on the wire. I've been considering whether it might be good to shift her to the growing out hutch when butchering happens on Wednesday.






Dawn's second litter is still in the huddle in small balls in their nesting box. In this case, a literal nesting box. They are doing quite well for being at that age, and are very very energetic. I'm not sure how much of that is the warmth allowing them to use more of their food to move around rather than just live, how much of it is them, and how much of it is Dawn being a more experienced mother. In any case, they are all over the place. I look forward to seeing how fast they grow.

Dawn's 2nd Litter Born

And as you can see they look a lot like Dawn's first litter in terms of basic appearance. There are five living kits. There were two unformed kits that were stillborn, likely due to the heat and stress from the repeated bear visits. There was also one large baby that was outside the nest on the wire in the main area of the hutch when we got home already dead. We tried to warm it up, but unfortunately it didn't come around. On the up side, all five of Dawn's babies are nice, big, and healthy. They are also very active and hard to photograph.

Genetics Part 1: A Primer and a Quiz

Rabbit Genetics, Part 1:

Genes control everything in an animal, from temperament  to maximum size and growth potential.  It is why peanuts are born to dwarf rabbits and not in normal lines, and why some rabbits are lops or wooly. The easiest type of genes to see and study are the color genes, because it produces an obvious result that is only rarely affected by outside factors.  For this reason, I’m focusing on color so that you can get the idea.  

I’m going to assume you have the basics of genetics down, and can understand words like dominant and recessive.  I’m happy to answer questions in the comments!

You can find some well-written and enjoyable primers at these links:
http://www.thenaturetrail.com/rabbit-genetics/
http://www.threelittleladiesrabbitry.com/rabbitcolorgeneticsindex.php

Why do some litters look like a rainbow and others look nothing like mom?

Preparations For Litter 2, and Reality Reminder

Dawn has begun nest building preparations for her second litter as of this morning. When the Lady of the House went to put hay in, Dawn was so eager for it she was taking hay from the Lady of the House's arms. We were a bit surprised by this turn of events needless to say, given that this is day 24 of her pregnancy, and we wouldn't be expecting kits for 4 more days.

General Update

Well, looks like I forgot today was Thursday. I have no new photos for you today, and nothing at all even vaguely planned too write. So instead I'll do a quick run down of where we are and our plans for the near future.

Moving The Litters

The growing out hutch is complete, and all of the babies are in the hutch giving their mothers some much needed peace before their next litter is born, which should be around the 16th or so for both Dawn and Sunny. As you can see, the babies are no longer so small, and are very actively curious about everything going on in and around their new home.

Making the Growing Out Hutch, and HEAT!

Work continues on the hutch, and despite my desires it isn't quite done yet due to some in process design changes to account for reality. The other part of it not being done is just how hot it was yesterday. Temperatures in the mid to upper 90s with near 100% humidity doesn't mean you can't work. It just means you should do so slowly and with awareness of your body. Between that and needing some new materials to do this properly, we are currently 2 doors short of a hutch.

Baby Growth, and the Bear

We've had a lot going on this week in the homesteading department, the baby rabbits being the obvious major part of that. The other part of what has been going on is that on Saturday we got a bunch of herbs, some vegetables, and some grape vines and planted them. I don't have pictures of what we planted, nor do I even remember exactly what all we planted since that was mostly the Lady of the House's project. I just know we've got a good number of cooking herbs growing, and 4 grape vines planted in the side of the hill. The babies are getting tough to take good photos of because of how much they move.

Dawn's First Litter: Details

As I posted yesterday Dawn's first litter was born! I didn't go into much detail about what was going on with them, and didn't have much in the way of good pictures. Today I hope to remedy those two lacks. Yesterday at about 9:55 AM I got home from bringing the Lady of the House to work and found that there were noises coming from the private section of Dawn's hutch, which she nearly never uses. I went to check, and found her hovering over the nest. By petting her and putting out hay for her I got her to let me see the babies. I took out and counted all 8 of the babies at that point, and got pictures of her cleaning herself off. There was a fair amount of blood on her, which I'm assuming is normal for giving birth. She efficiently cleaned it off which I'm guessing means I arrived JUST as she finished giving birth. The babies at that point were completely naked, and very warm. When I weighed one a little later that one ended up being 66 grams, which is quite large for just born baby rabbits, even meat breed rabbits apparently tend to start off in the 45 gram range. Dawn has been very accommodating to let us look at and handle the babies without issue. She also appears to have been feeding them.

We've got babies!

 To the left you can see one of the babies from the first litter This little one is 66 grams, and rather active for all that he or she doesn't have eyes open yet! I came home from dropping the Lady of the House off at work, and found Dawn in the nesting area looking a little stunned, and when I got her to move, a pile of baby bunnies covered by an awful lot of fur. Dawn herself was amenable to me checking in on the babies, and didn't bite me, or make any advances at me when I did go in and check.

Below the cut are some pictures of Dawn cleaning herself off from the blood from the birth, and a few more pictures of the same baby. I didn't want to bother too many of them in this weather.