Blood in the nest

Question
Yesterday my rabbit gave birth for the second time, the first time she just had one baby and we found it dead, not is been around 32 days after that happend and we found around 6 babies, all of them are pink and look ok, but there is a part of the nest that has blood/parts from the birth. It is the second day, and i dont know if i should change that area with new cotton. I made the nest for her this time, i put cotton all over the nest box, and she also pulled some hair, but is been 2 weeks that the cotton has been there and it has some poop/urine on it and looks dirty but the babies are there and we dont want the doe abandoning the babies, should we wait to clean the nest? i will really appreciate your answer.

Answer
Cotton is not the best nesting material, actually. It can form strands that can entangle and even choke the babies. I would suggest replacing the cotton with grass or timothy hay. Just add enough each day so that the mother can eat her fill without having to eat the nest.

Wait a couple days, and then you can change the nest.

The doe is really not likely to abandon the babies. In fact, rabbits are usually rather lax parents. Many breeders take the babies from the mother entirely, and then bring them back to feed a couple times a day (which is all the mothers usually naturally feed anyway). Once they are old enough to be out of the nest, they go back in with the mother, but the time before that gets them very used to people. It makes for exceptionally sweet and loving rabbits, and I've never had any mother's reject their babies from it. I cannot proove it without a doubt, but it has been my experience that the babies also seems to be more gentle around other rabbits when they grow up, too. I know babies learn a lot of their behaviour (including aggression) from their mother, so I suspect that not being around the mother helps keep them from learning aggression toward both humans and other rabbits.