YEEEEAAAAHHHH! My first live litter of baby rabbits since moving to Oregon. Finally!

Mom is a first-time mom, so I’m trying to keep my hopes under control. First-time moms often don’t know how to handle having kits. But she pulled fur! Kits were kindled on the wire, but I found them fast enough and all 8 are alive. Popped them in the nestbox onto the pile of mom’s fur and brought them inside for the night. Mom was interested in them, but didn’t hop in the box to nurse. That’s OK, they were *just* born so they don’t need it yet. In the morning will be soon enough. I didn’t want them outside with mom, though, in case she dumped the nestbox over, or peed in it, or other things that first-time moms sometimes do. I want to see how she is with them first.

They’re from my one meat rabbit pair. A male Californian and a female unknown. Probably a Chinchilla or American, the guy I got her from didn’t remember. She’s big and darkly agouti-colored. Friendly as anything. They had three dark kits, one that’s dark on top and pink on the bottom, and four pink.

I’m so excited. I was getting extremely down from my lack of litters this year. It’s really good to see one litter start out alive. Other times I tried resulted in either no litter at all, or litters that died right away. Depressing. Such a relief to have live kits again.

Now I need to find my camera so I can share the kits with you! They’re sooo cute at this age.