This is always a tough question. There is a greatrisk that they may get moody and fight. That is my greatest fear. Whendoes get ready to give birth they kind of go into like a frantic mode.They are definletly not themselfs thats for sure. Having another rabbitin the same space may just make them feel like it is not a safe area tohave the kits, or not enough territory, or they may compete for thebest spot to have the babies. I would let them have their own cages andthen a couple of days after they have their babies let them havesupervised time together out side of their cages, and dont let them gointo each other cage so that way they wont be able to bother eachothers babies. By the time that the babies start coming outof their nests they will be so busy and have those babies bugging themthat they wont want to have another rabbit around. LOL.
There is something else that I am worried about. How long was the buckwith the does. The thing is that does can actually carry two litters atonce. The litters can actually be two different ages as well. So whatcan happen is that the doe can have one litter one day, and then havethe other litter a few days later. Sometimes the doe will abandon onelitter to take care of the other one. To prevent this we actualy willonly breed the buck and doe during a certain amount of time like myrule is that I wont do the breedings farther than six hours apart,there for the buck and the doe will not be together any longer thanthat. However I never leave the buck and doe together without beingsupervised. I usauly just take the doe back to the bucks a couple oftimes during that sixhours.Ifyou have two litters this is what you need to do
Since you have two does you can learn the techniq of fostering. Rabbitsusauly have eight nipples okay. I usauly try to keep my litters toeight or below. This is mainly because I have the large breeds and Iwant them to get as big as they can. To do this I breed more than onerabbit of different colors at the same time. For example I will breed aenglish lop doe and a flemish doe at the same time, or a light greyflemish doe and a sandy flemish doe at the same time. This because Ikeep pedigrees on all of my rabbits and dont want them to get mixed up.Any way if one rabbit hastoo many and the other one has a few(sometimes if you take into consideration how many the doe usauly havethis helps when you are schedulingwho getsbreed)then you can divide them out by fostering them into theother does nest, andusauly the ohter doe will raise them. Youcan follow this rule as well if the doe has another litter a few dayslater. If you have to foster this iswhatyoudowhen the rabbits have the litters, seperate the doe fromthe nest for about two hours, do this by takign out the nest box if itis removable, putting up a barrier between the doe and the nest, ortaking out the kits and some hair, and putting them into a makeshiftnest but that way is risky. Then move the kits that you have to move tothe new rabbits nest, and then wait for say two hours. The doe onlyfeeds the babies once or twice in the morning and/or evening so do thisduring the day. Let the babies just stay in the nest with the rest ofthe babies for about two hours. This alows the new babies to get thescent of the new nest on them. The fur that the doe pulled helps this.This helps to keep the doe from picking out the new babies.
If there is too many babies all together you can actually seperate eachnest into two more nests. I dont recomend this unless you have no otheroption and there is over ten babies or you have babies that are fallingbehind because they are not getting fed because the litter is too big.How you do this is by actually making up a identical nest use thematerials from the original nest in your new nest so that way you keepthem looking alike and smelling the same. I actauly will make up thenew nest in a bucket, put half the kits into it and then take out thenest box holding the rest of the kits. Then in the morning I will putthe nest box back into the cage. The doe will usauly hop in feed thekits take care of them right away, cover them all up and then hop backout. Then i take out the nest box and keep them in a safe place, withthe kits in the nest in the bucket. Then that night I will put the kitsfrom the bucket into the nest boxand the kits from the nestbox into the bucket and take the kits that didnt get fed in the morningout and the doe then feeds them again. If you just take the kits out ofthe nest the doe doesnt always catch on that they were gone all day soyou realy need to take away the whole nest box. If you have a doe thatwill refuse to feed them twice a day then you may have to just switchthe kits to letting them get fed every other day, and the day that theydont go out and get feed by their mom feed them evaporated milk with aeye dropper. I do that as well.
Okay so this post turned out way too long again lOl. I hopethat this helps. Good luck. Let us know how everything turns out.
