Okay, okay, time for the litter y'all have been waiting for! Tiger Lily kindled 8 GORGEOUS kits early this morning! We have tricolors, booted tricolors and brindles! 😍😱 Half of them are rexed and all carry satin.
Reza project
Rainy Days Tiger Lily x Jack's Boomerang
62.5% Rex, 25% Satin, 12.5% NZ
Plucking rabbit fur for newborn kits.
Plucking fur from a mother rabbit who neglected to pull fur for her kits.
Her birthing hormones have caused the fur to easily release from her skin, this should not hurt the rabbit though there are some areas that release easier than others. I find the dewlap, belly, sides, thighs and rump to be good places to pull fur from. The back tends to not release as well, likely to protect the rabbit from the elements in the wild.
Mother rabbits tend to pull from everywhere though, you'll see them reaching back to their shoulder blades or pulling fur from the bottom of their feet 😵💫 That's not very smart ya goober! Stop that. That's entirely what your dewlap is for, pull from there.
So there you have it, a how-to video with Steffy as the negligent star of the show.
EDIT: Apparently the stimulation helped her to figure out what she was supposed to do, because later that night she pulled fur! Little late honey but E for effort 😅
1 week old Smashing Pumpkins 🎃 litter, all cozy and warm.
Contrary to some beliefs out there, the mother rabbit doesn't cover or uncover the kits depending on temp, she provides the covers and from birth the kits decide how deep to dig.
In the wild the mother rabbit would come to feed them once to twice a day and then leave for the rest of the time. She doesn't want a lot of her scent around her kits because that will draw predators to her nest. The kits have to be responsible for digging deeper into the fluff when the night gets cold or to the top when the day gets toasty.
As the kits get older with more fur on their bodies they'll need less and less covers, as seen here in Smashing Pumpkins week old litter even though it's below freezing.
(Edit: She's heading to Texas!)
This twerp has her bags packed and is looking for adventure! She's got places to go and people to see and doesn't have time to pose. 🙄
She sure is a friendly thing though, social butterfly looking to mingle, and binky, and chew up your electronic cords...
Satinized NZ mix.
🎃 Smashing Pumpkins smashing it out of the park, big fat milk bellies in her kits this morning.
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FAQ:
• These are day old baby rabbit kits.
• Yes I handle them bare handed.
• No mom won't abandon them because they smell like her caretaker that she's known and smelled since her own birth.
• I've been raising rabbits since 2015.
• I always take rabbits back if needed.
• I also take rabbits that don't come from my rabbitry.
6 kits for Smashing Pumpkins
Way to go Smashing Pumpkins! 🎃
This was her first litter and she was due tomorrow; she made a lovely nest, pulled a whole bunch of fur, had all her kits in the box, cleaned them off and ate all the placentas. 👏
Smashing Pumpkins is the only Satin cross NZ doe I kept from the Cross L's Monster Mash x 4K's Cinder litter.
She was bred to Fuego and since she's normal coated carrying Satin we expected roughly 25% satinized in the box. Right now it appears we have 50/50 satinized and normal coated so again Fuego is throwing more shinies than he should. Not complaining! ✨
Congrats on your new tattoo! Sorry you have a bad artist 🫣 Looks like the same font as ANDY on the bottom of Woody's boot in Toy Story...
Rabbits are required in the United States to have a tattoo in their left ear to be shown at an ARBA sanctioned rabbit show. Tiger Lily here got numbing spray 15 minutes beforehand and her ear was tattooed on an ice cube to further numb it. It took about 10 seconds to complete.
(Tiger Lily is a satinized mixed breed. By pedigree she is 50% Satin, 25% New Zealand and 25% Rex. She is an unshowable variety so she will be disqualified when she gets shown this weekend. However we still get to hear the judges feedback on fur and body type so it can be very valuable to take a rabbit even knowing it won't place.)
Satin x New Zealand rabbit kits
Come do nestbox checks with me! 🥰
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The first group really doesn't need to still have a nestbox, lol, but I don't need it and they like it so... They still have it 😄
Pyromaniac x Fuego: 3 weeks old tomorrow
Namaste x Fuego: 10 days old
Hot Mess x Fuego: 8 days old
Fire Cider x Fuego: 4 days old
Ashley x Fuego: 3 days old
Fire Cider x Fuego
Yet again, Fuego producing mostly shinies in his offspring. It should be roughly 50/50 but so far he's been going much closer to 75/25 on shinies/normies. Fire Cider's 1 day old litter. We have 5 shiny kits out of 7.
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Out here being a worry-wart about Ashley, I figured I may as well check on some babies.
Fire Cider kindled 8 kits this morning! Unfortunately one big one was DOA. She made a lovely nest and pulled plenty of fur, way to go sweetheart. 💕
~50/50 Satin/NZ. Should be about half Satinized and half normal coated. Though Fuego has been throwing mostly shinies I've noticed 👀
When I got home Sunday afternoon I noticed Fire Cider's litter had little open peepers! So I took a video of one yesterday as I was snuggling it, lol.
12 days old in the video
