Usually bunnies are pretty predictable about when they're gonna have a litter. It's generally really close to 32 days from the day they met the buck. I'll count four weeks, then give them the nesting materials and then four more days after that there should be a litter. But not this time! Good thing Olivia got her nesting grasses early!
Olivia had her babies at Day 29, which nobunny else has ever done. I'd not expected to see them, but was out stuffing grass and forage into her hutch. I'd noticed she had pulled a LOT of wool, most of her undercarriage is now about naked. Usually a doe will pull at least a little bit of wool to make a nest, Olivia kinda went overboard.
You can kinda see where she pulled all the wool to make her nest. Her front legs are all bare with kinda a pompom around her front feet. Maybe she likes a poodle cut? Usually a doe won't pull that much wool.
Bunnies like snacking on honohono grass. After having five babies, Olivia can have all the honohono grass she wants. As a new mom she also gets ti leaves, mulberry leaves, mint, plantain and dandelions. As well as bunny pellets. If she had a really big litter, then she would get some calf manna, but we don't have any of that at the moment and she only had five in the litter so she will just get extra forage. I'll give her some oatmeal too, for extra energy.
For the first several weeks, the babies are still really small. She's feeding five, but five tiny ones. Once they get between three to five weeks old, they're pretty big by then and there's alot more demand on her. She will start weaning them around that time so we will continue the oatmeal and soft forages for the babies to start snacking on. More honohono grass!
There's five in there, although they are a little hard to see. It looks like two white ones and three torts of some color. Although one of the torts may be a chocolate? It's hard to tell when they're just hours old. After a few days it will be obvious what their colors will be.
So five new unexpected early babies was a lovely surprise. I'm pretty sure she's done having them, so most likely there will only be five. We will see if Gayle is gonna have her litter on Wednesday which is the scheduled day. Maybe she will stick to the schedule. She hasn't been pulling any wool, though.
Olivia should take care of these new babies, she was a good mum with her last litter. I'm expecting them to thrive, but then, I was also expecting them to show up on Wednesday, so what do I know? I'll get some more pictures and get them posted hopefully tomorrow or the day after.
