More Babies! Woot!

six new ones!

I think the buns finally got the memo and they're now multiplying "just like rabbits". Ha! Maybe they had a math tutor when I wasn't looking or something.

Well, actually, the 'something' was me finding out it works better if the females have babies at a younger age. I'd been letting them get to two years old before their first litter, which in bunny years is middle age or some such. Even though when they had the litters at an older age, they had no problems actually having the babies (which is what I had thought the problem was with older mum buns giving birth) instead, they have trouble conceiving, not giving birth. The end result, of course, is still no litters. However, now we have younger mom bunnies and litters are beginning to appear when scheuled.

These six new babies are Jessie & Phineus' babies. She's the black doe who had the litter of four with Nero earlier this year. Since Phineus is a pure English buck and Jessie is a pure English doe, these kits are purebred English angora and should have fuzzy faces and ears. Also softer and silkier wool.

The pink one will be white when it gets a few days older and will have ruby red eyes since it's an albino. We will be keeping that one, and one of it's sisters as well (providing, of course, that there are sisters). There's already one doe from this litter who has a home to go to when she's older, providing there's another doe in the litter. For all we know at this stage, they're all boys. The white albino one will stay here no matter what the gender, though, since we really need white fiber.

Even though the babies are black and albino (I'm guessing it's a black baby under that albino whitewash), these babies will have the ability to have offspring of colors other than black.

Jessie's genetic color code is: aa B_ Cc D_ E_. Which is probably why all we see is black and white babies from her. Phineus is a lilac buck, so he has a lot of doubled up color recessive genes or he'd not be lilac. His color code is: aa bb Cc dd E_. Since none of the offspring are chocolate or blue, I'm guessing Jessie doesn't have the recessive for either one.

We're also starting to make a list of who stays and who goes to a new home. With these six new babies, we're now up to forty four bunnies which is about twenty bunnies too many, perhaps. Two of these newest baby bunnies will probably stay here, the white one no matter the gender and a female black one. Possibly two black ones, if two of the black ones are female. We won't know the genders on these little ones for about a month and a half or so, though.

Soon as we get it figured out, then the ones looking for new homes will be on the "Available Bunnies" page.

These are Olivia & Caesar's babies. They are starting to wander out of their nest now. They still fit under the edge of their nest box, so they can wander in and out as they like. The nesting areas are set up with dropped floors so if the babies get out of the nest they'll fall back in. So far we haven't lost any babies from being chilled since the new nesting areas.

There were several more babies out of the nest in the morning, however, all but the little chocolate one had popped back inside by the time I got the camera out. It's very bunny-like to not pause for pictures.

Out of the six in this litter, we will definitely be keeping the Ruby Eyed White one and probably most of the rest of them as well. Depending on gender, of course.

There, all back into the nest. They were all back inside the nest pretty quickly. They don't wander very far or outside for very long.

This is Cassandra and her babies. There's eight of them and she's doing very well keeping them fed. I'm not sure how well bunnies can count, up to eight hopefully.

They are just now starting to open their eyeballs. They haven't taken up wandering out of the nest very much, either. Mostly they just stay all snuggled down in a little heap of baby bunnies.

The ones with the white inside their ears will be agouti of some type. The three dark ones are actually black, although they almost look chocolate in the picture. I'm pretty sure there's eight of them in the pile.

There's one more litter planned for later this month:

DUE 3/29/2019 Athena, a chocolate doe x Phineus Phogge, a lilac buck

In one more week, we may have another litter. It will be another pure English angora litter, so that's a good thing. Not sure if there will be any white bunnies in the litter or not. We will see in a week if they show up, how many and what colors. If we don't get many or any white ones, then Suzie, the REW doe, may meet up with either Caesar or Phineus.