baby polish bunnies

Question
Our polish bunny Juliet had babies probably on the 15th or 16th of this month. She did not have them in the nest she had prepared for them...instead got into the male, Romeo's area and gave birth there. I put her back into her area in the morning and checked Romeo;s area buy found no babies. She lost wieght so we again checked all of thier areas but found no babies and assumed she had another false pregnacy--she had had three previous ones. Unforunatly while I was cleaning thier area late Monday nightI came across two dead babies in the male area. After Tearing down shelves I was able to locate three more babies--weak but alive. I put them with the mother but she has shown no intrest and can actually be agressive towards them--Kicking them away from her. I attempted to but them into a nest with her but she threw them out and put her toys in it instead. I have taken the mother out every four hour and hold her on my lap on her side and the babies can nurse--The mother is not happy but seems to tolerate the procedure ok. I am wondering when is the soonest I can wean these babies because I don't want to stress out our female bunny too much. And is there any easy way to get the babies to urinenate. I have been gently rubbing them with a warm colth but they seem to be getting sore. They must be 10 -11 days old now because they have all opened thier eyes. Thanks for any advise.

Answer
Hi Barbara,

I guess I don't completely understand the housing arrangement. All rabbits, especially unaltered rabbits need their own cages. Aside from preventing pregnancies, rabbits are territorial by nature and can fight. If Romeo and Juliet (cute names!) are being housed together, make sure you put them in separate cages right away.

If they are in separate cages, good! It sounds like your next step is get a nestbox.
Here are examples: http://www.thenaturetrail.com/BuildingNestBoxes.htm
http://islandgems.net/nestbox2.html

Ideally, the nest box prevents the kits (baby rabbits) from ending up in places they do not belong. If she is being aggressive towards them, you will not want to add the nest box to the cage at such a young age. Instead, once a day as you have been doing take your female out, turn her over and let them nurse. Make sure that their nestbox is still inside a cage in the event that they get out. At a few weeks they will begin getting out on their own.

Here is a great article which covers the feeding procedure, including helping them urinate:
http://islandgems.net/handfeeding.html

At 6-8 weeks they can safely be weaned. In bad situations such as this, they technically can be weaned at 4 weeks at most, but  there are GI tract issues that may occur. The most important thing is they are able to eat solid pellets at the time of weaning.

Good luck! Feel free to ask any additional questions!