Hazel is nesting

[Elizabeth]

So this morning I was lying in bed when my husband wanders over to Hazel's cage and I hear him say:

Ben: That's a big pile of hay you have there Hazel.

Me: Oh crap.

Ben: What?

Me: Where's the hay?

Ben: It's the weirdest thing -right beside her hay box. She's making a lovely little pile. It looks quite cozy actually.

Me: Double crap!!!

Ben: This is bad?

Me: Baby, she's making a nest.

Ben: Really?

Me: Really, really.

Ben: I thought she was just getting fat.

Me: Um yeah, I didn't want to burst your bubble.

Ben: I guess I should get her some more hay huh? She's completely cleaned out her hay box.

Me: *sigh* Yup. I'll go get the shoe box.

So I went and grabbed the shoebox, put some nice absorbant carefresh beddingon the bottom, put all the hay from her nest on top and placed it in the exact same spot. (As a side note, Hazel? While cute, is not the brightest bulb in the room...she built her nest right over her water dish. I had to dig it out and place it on the other side of the cage)

Hazel took one look at it, gave a sigh of disgust and started moving all the hay into her little hidey box. She does not approve of the nest box I gave her. I eventually took the shoe box out because with it in there and her building the nest in her hidey box now, there's no room for her to lay away from the babies. I actually thought that once I removed the shoebox she would rebuild the nest in the original spot but nope, she kept shoving all the hay into her hidey box.

I've taken some pictures because I wanted you to see the hidey box, I'm hoping that it'll be okay for a nest box since Hazel has chosen to start stuffing it full of hay.

Just to put this out there, I realize that the cage she is in is far too small. My four own rabbits all have large indoor dog pens as their homes, but this was the cage that TRACS gave me to foster her in and we're a bit limited on space so I had to use it. She does get 5 to 6 hours of free time every evening to roam around the bedroom and lounge on the bed. And on the weekends, she hasfree run ofthe bedroom theentire day and evening.

Here's a picture of the lovely, perfect nesting shoebox I gave her that she promptly rejected:

Here she is gathering hay from her hay box:

Here she is disappearing into her hidey home:

And this is her in it. Do you think it is suitable for a nest box? I thought it might be okay because the babies will be sheltered and warm, I'm just hoping it isn't too big etc. As well, it's quite low so she doesn't have muchhead room, will she be able to feed the babies in it? I'm not sure how much "standing" room she needs to feed them. I don't want her crushing them because she's trying to stand over them and nurse and there isn't enough head room for her to do it. You know? What do you think? Although if it's not suitable I'm not sure what I'll do as she's determined to not use the darn shoebox!! And I don't want to keep destroying her nest on her.

She hasn't started ripping any fur from her belly as of yet and last night she ate everything the way she normally does so I'm assuming I have a day or two before she gives birth?

Can anyone give me a quick rundown on the birthing procedure. Do they normally give birth in the early morning or late evening or is there no set time? If I happen to catch the birth, when should I be concerned and looking at vet intervention? How long are bunnies normally in labour? Any signs I should be looking for that she's in distress?

Sorry for all of the questions, but thank you in advance! I really appreciate any help and advice provided.

Cheers!

 

[aurora369]

That box should be fine for now. It's what she's chosen, and it's where she's comfortable. If it's not suitable once the babies are born, then you can move the entire nest with the babies in it to a better location (like the shoe box), she shouldn't reject them.

I can tell you about my experiences with Wildfire as she's the only one I've actually had give birth at my house. All the other foster families gave birth else where and I got them at 2-5 days old.

Wildfire would start building her nest about a week before giving birth. She would make a nest, rip it apart and build a new one. She start ripping out fur about 2-3 hours before giving birth and she was very frantic. She would lie down then all of a sudden jump up, run around the cage, then go to the nest and rip out more fur.

Once she got into the nest to push the babies out, she did one baby every 2-3 minutes. The whole birthing process was about 15 minutes. She made a few small wimpering noises, but nothing major and I could only hear them because I was very close. She was very comfortable with me, and let me watch and be close.

If she's pushing for more than 15-20 minutes, she most likely has a stuck kit and needs to be rushed to the vet. The babies should come out very easily, and she shouldn't be pushing very long for each baby.

You need to be prepared to warm up any kits that are born out of the nest or that are cold. If a baby is found cold, always try to warm it up first because there's a good chance it's not dead yet, just very cold. You can pop them in your bra or put them in a shoe box filled with hay halfway ontop of a heating pad set on low, that way they can wiggle away from the heat if they get too warm.

Once all the babies have been born, you should check them over to make sure there's no placenta's in the nest or any other gookies that could fester and cause infections. After all the babies are clean and warm, put them back in the nest and return them to mom.

You can look through this thread in the Bunny101 section about Breeding and Care of the Young:
http://rabbitsonline.net/view_topic.php?id=12047&forum_id=17

Might have some good tips to keep in mind.

And as for time of day, they normally give birth at night when no one is around. Wildfire gave birth around 11:45pm to her last litter.

--Dawn

 

[polly]

I think Aurora covered it all. I have had buns give birth at any time of the day Bruce cut the grass and set Lucy off!! but most of mine go early am.

You will find the link very helpful. If she looks like she is straining for a long time without getting anywhere or looks stressed then its time for intervention.

Goos luck I am sure everything will be fine

 

[Elizabeth]

Thank you Dawn, very helpful information and links. I'll keep my eye on her and hope that everything goes well. From just the way she's been acting (I fostered another feral domestic bunny last year and she gave birth to a single stillborn baby, she never built a nest and when the birth happened was pretty much like, "hmm...look at this, I wonder how that happened"), I get the feeling that she's an experienced mama.

Polly, I'm sort of hoping that she has the babies late evening or early morning as I'm at work all day and if something does go wrong I won't be there to rush her to the vet. Fingers crossed that she delivers just fine!

 

[BlueGiants]

Most of mine seem to like to deliver at night, (but we had a litter born at 11:15 this morning!Go figure! Every doe is different.) The whole thing should be over in less than 20 minutes. If momma seems to have it under control, I do not interfere. You got good advice, make sure the nest is clean (no "gookies"...).

Please let us know how Hazel is doing.

 

[Elizabeth]

Hazel had her babies while we were at work. I came home to a much skinnier bunny!

She built a rather spectacular nest in her hidey home complete with lots and lots of fur. She's doing just fine, acting completely normal, eating lots of pellets and veggies and hay.

I have no idea how many babies she had, I shined a flashlight into her hidey home and the babies are completely covered in the nest. The only reason I know she had babies is because she's much skinnier and the fur in the nest was "moving". There are no noises from the nest and everything seems fine. I'm hesitant to lift the box because she built the nest right against the corner of it and if I lift it the nest will fall apart a bit.

I figured I'd leave them be tonight as like I said there are no noises, only movement so I thought that was a good indication that she's feeding them. Tomorrow night I'll lift theopposite corner of the box and see if I can count the babies, make sure there's no "gookies" (love that word) and give the babies a quick visual check over.

Thanks everyone for your help, I'll get pictures as soon as I can! I'm just glad that everything went well and Hazel is doing fine!

 

[naturestee]

Congrats on the safe delivery!

I hope we'll be getting pictures of the little family?:biggrin2:

Just a tip, when you check the babies pet Mom first so you have her scent on your hands. It might help prevent her getting upset about human stink on her babies, since she's not used to humans much.

 

[Elizabeth]

Thanks naturestee.

I will definitely pet Hazel first, in fact I'm planning on doing my very best to not even touch the babies unless there is a problem. Either way, I'll be sure to pet her lots and lots before I start checking the babies.

I'll definitely try and take some pictures tomorrow night when I check on the babies!

 

[BlueGiants]

That is WONDERFUL! So happy to hear everything went well. (I'd guess she had them during the day cause she knew it's the quietest time. Everyone is out of the room.)

Can't wait to see pictures!

 

[Elizabeth]

Thanks BlueGiants. I took some pictures of the babies last night just before we went to bed. I'm going to go and create a bunny blog about it in the blog section and try and take daily pictures of them.

Cheers!