Mother rabbit gave birth to only 1 baby but not the rest

[Sky]

The mother rabbit gave birth to only 1 baby and didn't give birth to the rest. It's been 4 hours since first baby came out. Right now she's behaving mostly normally by sleeping and getting up a bit more than usual. She's still eating grass like usual. She didn't have nest ready because her labor was unexpectedly sudden. About 10 minutes after giving birth to 1 baby she was disturbed by me when I introduced nesting box in panic. And hours before giving birth, in the morning, I saw the male was trying to mount her repeatedly dunno for how long. I separated them immediately.

I want to know if such a huge gap between babies coming out is an issue.

Note: This is her 6th litter (batch) of babies. Last litter was 2 months ago. She didn't pull any fur this time.

 

[Preitler]

Look everywhere for a nest or kits, if the buck got horny hours before there could be one somewhere in a corner. Can well be that he messed up nest building and the delivery back then.

 

[zuppa]

The mother rabbit gave birth to only 1 baby and didn't give birth to the rest. It's been 4 hours since first baby came out. Right now she's behaving mostly normally by sleeping and getting up a bit more than usual. She's still eating grass like usual. She didn't have nest ready because her labor was unexpectedly sudden. About 10 minutes after giving birth to 1 baby she was disturbed by me when I introduced nesting box in panic. And hours before giving birth, in the morning, I saw the male was trying to mount her repeatedly dunno for how long. I separated them immediately.

I want to know if such a huge gap between babies coming out is an issue.

Note: This is her 6th litter (batch) of babies. Last litter was 2 months ago. She didn't pull any fur this time.

Hi, how old is she and how often she has babies? Where are her older babies, if they are 2 months now so she was pregnant and had to nurse same time for one months she's probably very exhausted, it is not good for her to have babies that often even if you breed commercially you should give her at least one month to recover after she stopped nursing before you can breed her again. If you breed her too often she can get sick and die. Also her babies can be weak or born dead or not fully developed.

 

[zuppa]

I've just checked your previous threads and see that she had two litters by the end of her first year and now is about 1 year and 9 months old, so if she had 4 litters over 9 months that's way too often and I see your complaints that all babies die one by one and you still keep breeding her that's really cruel and irresponsible you should stop breeding her and let her recover.

 

[Preitler]

If this is that doe, and this is her 6th litter that really would be a tight scedule, a single kit not so much of a surprise. With that breeding scedule from nursing to breeding with no break it would need good food stuff and good breeding stock to not wear her out.

How did the previous litters fare? Was that second litter the only one with problems?

Anyway, apart from making sure her calcium level doesn't run too low (growing little bones need a lot, also nursing, but they need it so the muscles work properly during labor) there isn't much to do right now, you can give her a Tums, or whatever brand of the same stuff you can get, I mix some, about a fingernail sized heap, powdered egg shells with damp oatmeal and pellets. Just in case she really still carries some kits.

 

[Augustus&HazelGrace]

If the buck was with her right after she gave birth. I can almost 100% guarantee that she is pregnant again. After this next litter weans you should give her like a months break.

 

[Sky]

Update : 3 hours after the first baby came out, We let her loose to make her feel comfortable because she always wants to be free and out of the cage. She roamed around in a little area for 5 minutes and let out quite a bit of blood or blood like liquid in that area here and there. Then in a span of 2 hours she slowly gave birth to 3 dead babies and 1 barely alive baby with big intervals between them with little blood. That one died soon after too. The babies look very thin and slender and a little bit underdeveloped with their skin being very Shiny like a fish. Then she became a bit more active and started coming out of that self confined little area and roamed around the house like normal.

Then 2 hours after the previous 4 babies she gave birth to 1 other baby and one quite underdeveloped baby that just looks like flesh. At this point she let out 2 palm sized amount of blood/blood like liquid. Then after a while we put her back in cage.

Then 6 hours later when we let her out again she gave birth to 2 more dead babies which I didn't expect at all because I thought all babies came out. Now she's behaving mostly normally but seems weak when she runs and walks.

So how does this situation look to you guys? Is there any danger to mother's health in this moment?

A NOTE: Guys, we (Me, my mom and my sister) are NOT keeping them for breeding purposes. We have 1 male and 1 female that's all. We love them so much and they have names. I'm just not mentioning them here. Except 1st and 4th litter all babies died at the age of 17-25 days time period. All those surving babies were given away at 50 days of age. We only kept 1 of the babies from each litter because we wanted them to look like a family. 1 of them died of accidental death by choking at 5 months of age and the one from 4th litter died of diarrhea at 3 months age.

We couldn't bear watching those kits die one by one during the second littler and wanted to get the parents neutered and spayed. But seeing we are living in a third world country the vets here only specialize in dogs and cats. Of some of vets we visited for general purposes their treatment looked like they're just trying out treatments and prescribed medicines meant for cats and dogs and when we enquired about neutering no vet talked confidently about the procedure and they say there's "risk" involved so wanted us to be prepared. So we were scared and never went further with the process. The only few reputed ones dealing with exotics are the super expensive vets where celebrities go to. So the reason why we didn't get them neutered and spayed is only because of the circumstance.

We tried keeping the parents separate but the male goes super crazy and mad if we keep them separate for too many days. The mother behaves strangely too after a while. Not being able to see that we keep them together and only separate them when the male is in heat. But she gets impregnated out of my knowledge every time. This time I'll make sure to keep them separate as much as possible and only let them meet under constant Supervision making sure that the male never mounts her. If he does, he's going back in his cage.

 

[helena]

Hi, how old is she and how often she has babies? Where are her older babies, if they are 2 months now so she was pregnant and had to nurse same time for one months she's probably very exhausted, it is not good for her to have babies that often even if you breed commercially you should give her at least one month to recover after she stopped nursing before you can breed her again. If you breed her too often she can get sick and die. Also her babies can be weak or born dead or not fully developed.

I'm sorry that happened! It sounds as though she needed more recovery time. It's not good for her heath to have litter after litter. I know it was by accident that she had a litter this time, but thats very dangerous. She needs a break. The male will continue to mount her, thats what male animals do. You just need to keep them separate until they are spayed and neutered.

 

[nicolekline97]

I personally have had 10 kids (8 that were very close births) and am a doula. I I love births be it people or animals. I have no experience with rabbit births but...if you feel lightly on her abdomen do you feel movement? If you do I would wait 1 day tops, then take her to a vet to check it out and possibly try to help her somehow or surgery. If a rabbit inside passes or cannot be birthed your rabbit could get an infection and have health consequences just as if a human. It is not very responsible to allow your rabbits to mate if she has had so many litters close, assuming they are not for producing meat. Maybe you are not aware of that. In the wild they are not spacing litters out. Just yesterday a wild rabbit gave birth in my flower pot. I read to leave them alone. She had put them in the dirt with her fur and twigs on top. Yesterday I saw movement That is so hard on the body to have babies close together (speaking from my personal experience and knowing those with animals who allow as many litters as allowed). She likely needs a break. If she continues to do this her milk supply may have issues, she could lose weight, have poor health etc. Having any animal is a learning process.

 

[Preitler]

Oh my.

So how does this situation look to you guys? Is there any danger to mother's health in this moment?

I would say it is for some time now. I mean, just read your own account of what just happened to answer the question.
We, sitting on a computer somewhere on the world, can't tell if she's in imidiate danger or not.

A NOTE: Guys, we (Me, my mom and my sister) are NOT keeping them for breeding purposes.

If you would keep them for breeding purposes, you quite likely wouldn't do it that way. Wasting her isn't sustainable, and brings not the best results.
They breed - like rabbits. There's no "heat", there are times when they are more eager, but they will use any chance they get anytime (unless you want then to breed, but that's another story). It just takes 10 seconds. Rabbits are induced ovulators, so every single time he gets her it is a hit, there is no recreational sex for rabbits, it's pregnancy, every single time.
If you put them together it will happen again.

We tried keeping the parents separate but the male goes super crazy and mad if we keep them separate for too many days. The mother behaves strangely too after a while. Not being able to see that we keep them together and only separate them when the male is in heat. But she gets impregnated out of my knowledge every time. This time I'll make sure to keep them separate as much as possible and only let them meet under constant Supervision making sure that the male never mounts her. If he does, he's going back in his cage.

Rabbits are still very close to their wild anchestors, actually, they are practically the same. It's our responsibility to take care that their insincts and biology are not messed up or out of control due to us keeping them as pets or lifestock.

Putting the buck to the doe is like putting a fox in the chicken coop, and expecting that nothing will happen. In the wild, chicken (or their relatives) have strageties to deal with foxes, doesn't work in a coop.

You are projecting some very human viewpoints and feelings on them, I would say.
Figurativly showing him the carrot and plucking him out when he sniffs it - he can't understand that, he is an animal. Poor boy, he'll never have a chance to settle down a bit, hormones brought to a boil again and again . Keep them seperated at least for 3 months or half a year before saying that they act crazy.

I know, it's so cute how well a buck and a pregnant doe get along, but that comes with a cost. It doesn't work well to let our romantic delusions dictate how to keep animals.

Good luck that your doe pulls through this now.

 

[rachael.lion.lop]

Update : 3 hours after the first baby came out, We let her loose to make her feel comfortable because she always wants to be free and out of the cage. She roamed around in a little area for 5 minutes and let out quite a bit of blood or blood like liquid in that area here and there. Then in a span of 2 hours she slowly gave birth to 3 dead babies and 1 barely alive baby with big intervals between them with little blood. That one died soon after too. The babies look very thin and slender and a little bit underdeveloped with their skin being very Shiny like a fish. Then she became a bit more active and started coming out of that self confined little area and roamed around the house like normal.

Then 2 hours after the previous 4 babies she gave birth to 1 other baby and one quite underdeveloped baby that just looks like flesh. At this point she let out 2 palm sized amount of blood/blood like liquid. Then after a while we put her back in cage.

Then 6 hours later when we let her out again she gave birth to 2 more dead babies which I didn't expect at all because I thought all babies came out. Now she's behaving mostly normally but seems weak when she runs and walks.

So how does this situation look to you guys? Is there any danger to mother's health in this moment?

A NOTE: Guys, we (Me, my mom and my sister) are NOT keeping them for breeding purposes. We have 1 male and 1 female that's all. We love them so much and they have names. I'm just not mentioning them here. Except 1st and 4th litter all babies died at the age of 17-25 days time period. All those surving babies were given away at 50 days of age. We only kept 1 of the babies from each litter because we wanted them to look like a family. 1 of them died of accidental death by choking at 5 months of age and the one from 4th litter died of diarrhea at 3 months age.

We couldn't bear watching those kits die one by one during the second littler and wanted to get the parents neutered and spayed. But seeing we are living in a third world country the vets here only specialize in dogs and cats. Of some of vets we visited for general purposes their treatment looked like they're just trying out treatments and prescribed medicines meant for cats and dogs and when we enquired about neutering no vet talked confidently about the procedure and they say there's "risk" involved so wanted us to be prepared. So we were scared and never went further with the process. The only few reputed ones dealing with exotics are the super expensive vets where celebrities go to. So the reason why we didn't get them neutered and spayed is only because of the circumstance.

We tried keeping the parents separate but the male goes super crazy and mad if we keep them separate for too many days. The mother behaves strangely too after a while. Not being able to see that we keep them together and only separate them when the male is in heat. But she gets impregnated out of my knowledge every time. This time I'll make sure to keep them separate as much as possible and only let them meet under constant Supervision making sure that the male never mounts her. If he does, he's going back in his cage.

Rabbits do not go through heat!! Year round at anytime if the year or day they can get pregnant. You need to separate her all the time. It only takes 3 seconds for a male to impregnate her. If you really cared about her well being you would keep him away. The babies are dying because she isn’t getting any break time or proper nutrients for after the birth because the male is always with her to get her pregnant again. They need to be separated ALL THE TIME or she will always be pregnant and will die prematurely due to the constant breeding.