Day #6

Do not let this peaceful scene fool you!  I cleaned out the bedding, as after five days it is a bit soiled.  Trying to put them back in was like a French farce!  As soon as I got one in the refurbished nest, another one was escaping across the enclosure.  They are fast!  Drew was telling me to quit fooling around; I told him I wasn't fooling around, I couldn't keep them all in one place long enough to put the lid back on them.  We are using 1/2 of a dog carrier as as a "burrow".  I had noticed that Cherry had piled a lot of straw in the entrance.  I now know why!  She's worried about escapees.

Day #5

I had to wake them up for this one as I got home rather late.  Their ears are starting to unseal and all of them have nice round tummies.  Ray is particularly interested in everything I do when I am in the enclosure.  Cherry had to chase him away from the babies as she doesn't appreciate his interest, although he just seems curious.

Day #4

Cherry supervised while I took my daily photo.  They were jumping around and squeaking like crazy, very strong.

Then I got the privilege of watching Cherry nurse her babies, something that rabbit mothers usually do without an audience but Cherry trusts me.  I petted her gently while the babies nursed.  Then she hopped away, dropping them all in a heap!

Day #3

Today, three are clearly broken and three are clearly solid.  It's funny, as the genetics prediction says 1/2 solids and 1/2 broken, and it definitely is.  I know Cherry was feeding them this morning but I noticed all but one looked like they could use another meal.  Lizzie's babies always looked like Weebles, but again, this is Cherry's first litter.  I have been feeding her black oil sunflower seeds to add fat to her milk.

Day #2

I think I'm beginning to see the broken pattern on #1 and #6 (from left to right) and possibly #4.  The other three look fawn to me at this point but I will keep taking photos of this litter to see how the color develops.  One of the babies had a wrinkly stomach which means it isn't getting enough to eat.  I hope by tomorrow night that has been rectified.

Looking pretty good

Six babies, all active and looking well fed.  I think Cherry is turning out to be an OK mom!

Whaaaat?

Nearly 24 hours after Cherry gave birth to Robin, she gave birth to five more kits!  Drew found them in the nest in the late afternoon.  They definitely weren't there at noon when I checked on Robin.  Of course, now we can't identify Robin!  It's too early to tell whether or not any of them have the "broken" pattern that Cherry has with white and colored hair but we should be able to tell in a couple of days.

The only thing I can think is that Robin was in one of Cherry's two uterine horns and the five other babies were in the other.  She also gave birth rather late.  28 days was June 21 so Robin was born on Day 30 and the rest on Day 31.

One baby, all alone

Cherry gave birth to a single kit sometime in late afternoon/early evening on June 23.  She left it out in the middle of the floor so Drew put the baby in the nest that Cherry had prepared three or four days before.  We decided to name it Robin, in honor of Robin Williams, an actor we sadly miss, who was also an only child.  Robin can be a male or female name so we thought it would be appropriate either way.

When I came home in the evening, Robin felt very cool to my touch so I found a box of wool I had clipped from Cherry a while ago and I chopped it up into small pieces with my scissors and filled the nest with more wool.  Cherry had pulled very little.  In the morning, when I checked on the kit, it felt warmer.

Busy Sunday afternoon!

Today we finally tried out our German clippers.  We gave Ray and Grace haircuts to cope with the summer heat.  Since I didn't have a clue what I was doing, I didn't try to get good wool, I just experimented with the clippers to see how to do it.

Ray's before picture

Ray's after picture

Hard to see the difference, right?  One, I was afraid to get too close to the skin and nick him and two, he had some matting that the clippers couldn't go through so I had to cut with scissors.  He should look more like this:

Sheared German Angora

I will continue to practice and see if I can't get a smoother cut.  

Then we tattooed the babies' ears.  I have no idea if the tattoos will be readable.  The cordless tattoo pen is supposed to be pretty easy but I think the kind that you just squeeze into the ear with movable type would be clearer and involve less wriggling.  We did wrap them up in towels but it's hard to know how tight to hold such little critters without hurting them.

Finally, we washed all the food and water bowels and put out fresh frozen ceramic tiles to beat the heat and came in for a much needed shower and cold beverage.

Faith forgave us right away for poking her in the ear.

Lazy Sunday afternoon