In this post I just want to talk about a few things I've been thinking this week.
Most likely when her kits are born they'll come inside with me every night since temperatures often drop below freezing for a portion of the night. However, this also depends on how many babies she has. If she has 2-4 surviving kits most likely I'll bring them inside, if she has 5 or more I'll probably leave them out because they'll stay so warm together. I'm also really excited for this litter because Beth is a false dwarf, which means no peanuts! I'm excited to see what colors we get too. Possible colors are chestnut, orange, opal and cream, among others!
Another thing that really bugs me about Clementine (as if only having dead babies wasn't enough), is that she absolutely REFUSES to nest in the nestbox. She always ignores it and builds her nest in the opposite corner. It gets so irritating. Last time, I just let her have the babies in the little nest she made opposite to the nestbox. I was there for the birth so I was able to put the kits in the box right away. But they were all dead anyway, except for one that died a few days later, which is so weird. Hopefully this time she'll get her act together and raise some babies!
The next does I bred on the same day, and they are due on the 20th of next month. I tried to breed the chestnut doe, Heidi, on the same day as Beth and then again on the same day as Clementine but she REFUSED to lift. She finally bred for me on the 19th of this month. Yay! She's getting older (she's around 9 months old now) and I need to get some babies out of her. I bred her to Holly's Percy, and it was his first time, so we'll see if she even gets pregnant. She only got two takes, which is still better than none, but it's not as many as I like so we'll see.
Out of all of these litters I'm most hopeful for some brokens from my broken orange girls! I need a nice broken buck and I would prefer not to buy one, so I've been hoping I'll be able to produce one. We'll see how it works out this time around. I would also love it if Sarah produced a showable version of herself so I can work with just does out of my own line. Out of the solid girls, I'm really hoping for nice show quality replacements. If one of them has huge litters and produces showy babies, they'll be kept for that. But this year I'm trying to have more show quality rabbits than brood does and bucks. Right now my herd is predominantly brood rabbits. Besides my new junior doe Fern, the only doe I have that would do well at a show is Butterfly! That needs to change!
I hope you guys enjoyed this long (and possibly, boring), post about the upcoming litters in my rabbitry. I enjoy writing these because I love looking back a year or more later and seeing where my herd has been.