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litter no 2

22 10:49:20

Question
My rabbit had 7 kits 4 weeks ago, they are all doing great, however last night she had one more baby, i dont know whether to leave the baby with the existing litter or put her seperate.
How will she feed all of them, will the other babies kill the new one??

Answer
Katie,

Has she been in the same cage with an adult male? If so, remove the male immediately. Once weaned at 6-8 weeks rabbits need their own separate cages as they are territorial in nature. In addition, as you may have noticed they breed easily.

Assuming she was breed for a second time, she would have needed to have conceived nearly right after the birth of the first litter. That is possible as rabbits are receptive to breeding 72 hours after giving birth. Ideally, she should not have been with a male at all to allow this to happen. Now that it has happened, I would wean the kits assuming they are at 4 weeks or more.

Normally it is recommended to wean kits (baby rabbits) at 4-6 weeks. As long as they are eating solid food, they can be safely weaned. They should not be nursing any longer anyway.

Remove the litter of 7 from the mother and her new kit. As I mentioned, this needs to be done at 4-6 weeks anyway. You can house the litter of 7 together for another few weeks or you can go ahead and separate them. Regardless, they too will need their own separate cages before reaching 2 months of age.

Good luck an let me know if you have any further questions.