Mother rabbit attacking babies

Question
Hi,
Can you please help me. I contact the vets about this they said to leave them alone. My female rabbit has had a litter of 4 at first which of 2 survived. After a month she had a litter of 7 which are all doing fine. She attacks the first two especially the girl...I placed the new babies with the older lot for a while as I was cleaning out the cage. The new babies are turning 3 weeks tomorrow. After I placed the babies back in the cage the mother attacked the 3 week old babies. Each time I place her with them now she attacks thwm I'm scared she's going to kill them. She seems to really hate her first litter baby girl who is turning 2 months on the 26th she even made her bleed.
Why is she doing that... Please help...

Answer
Hi,

Is there still a male in with her?  This is way to soon for a mother rabbit to have to raise more babies.  She was never given a break between litters.  This is enough to make anyone cranky.  If you do not have the male separate you can be expecting babies again next week.  They can have babies every 4 weeks and they can get pregnant again immediately after giving birth.

I can't tell you why she is attacking them unless she is pregnant.  Pregnant does are cranky.  I would take the 7 week old babies completely away and do not put the other babies with them even to clean out the cage.  They should stay with their mother until 8 weeks old but at this point she is going to kill them so I wouldn't take any chances with them.  The mother can smell them and clearly she feels threatened by the 7 week old female.  You should not need to separate the others to clean them.  Put her and the 7 babies all in the same cage/box etc. while you are cleaning out their enclosure.  This way they will all have the same smells and you shouldn't have to worry about her smelling something else.

I strongly recommend that after this litter is weaned that you get your doe spayed.  Some rabbits do not make good mothers and if she is attacking her own babies it is not something I would want to risk in the future.

I wish I had a better answer for you.

Good luck

Pam