I got a little surprise this morning. I had just gotten back from my run, and stopped to feed the rabbits and chickens before going inside to feed the dogs (this is what my life is like with Katie gone). We attempted to breed our rabbits on the first of last month, but we were fairly certain that things didn't take with Illiana, and due to the premature fur-pulling nest-making activities of Juno a couple weeks ago (see the section under pseudopregnancy from the previous post) I also assumed that she was not pregnant. I briefly checked her nest box late last week, but it seemed fairly uninteresting, and consequently forgot all about it, with the exception of the occasional thought that I should empty the straw out of it. So this morning, I figured I'd take a look in Juno's nest box to see if there was anything in there, and lo and behold, underneath a bunch of Juno's pulled-out fur there was something moving! This is what I saw:
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| Look at those cute little ears | | | | | |
From my best attempts to count the constantly-moving little critters, we have five baby rabbits, all of which are completely black from head to toe and about four inches long. It's likely that they are either 4 or 5 days old at this point (she should have kindled on the 30th or 31st). Juno appears to be taking good care of them and to have already lost some of her extra weight due to milk production. Katie and I are both very excited. We've had our rabbits since May/June and FINALLY have our first litter. Hopefully this is just the beginning of many more lagomorphs to come.
Here's Juno, the proud mother:
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| She looks a little sleepy... |
On a final note, I'd like to point out that our rabbits are outside with absolutely no heat source. Wednesday and Thursday night we had below 0 temperatures and all of the kits seem to be just fine. I think that's amazing.
