Litter Complications

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clevername

clevername

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I've been raising rabbits for a little over a year, and while I try, I'm in no way an expert about the hobby. That said, I've yet to loose a live-born kitten due to complications in its first few weeks of life and I have this forum as well as several yahoo groups to thank for that.:) (BTW RabbitVet is a lifesaver---literally)

However nearly every litter I've cared for has had at least one or two problems arise at some point or another. (I've had pencil kits, terrible mothers, infections....you name it)

I've noticed that we do our best on this forum to warn new would-be breeders of the risks pregnancy puts on our animals. Even though my survival rate is fantastic, I still have my horror stories and I've chimed in to a certain degree here and there.

But now that we've heard the unfortunate results of Fluffball's pregnancy (btw my condolences, Becca:cry4::hug2:). It makes me wonder how often these issues come up.

Breeders, how often to you encounter problems with pregnant does and their litters? Do we blow the risks out of proportion on this forum?
 
I'm by no means a breeder, but I have bred (and kept all babies). I had basic knowledge, but not enough knowledge for the first while. I lost two does. One had a stuck kit and died in kindling, the other died 2 days after birth, with hindsight, probably had some sort of internal issue that I missed (due to a series of stupid coincidences) before getting pregnant.

I have had 10 live kits out of 5 litters, lost two does, and lost 15 kits. I've never lost one if it has survived the birth though. My last litter went like a dream, 7 live kits from a nethie, an amazing mum, and no problems at all, other than a general overrunning of babies :pWhen I stress to people the complications I do so from my own experiences as an inexperieced and less knowledgable person breeding rabbits. The last litter where everything went fine was down to better knowledge from me and help on this forum and from a breeder friend who chose me an excellent ladygirl for my buck. I'm not experienced now, but I know the theory and I have SO much more knowledge now than ever before and think that is so important. If you have the knowledge, use it, don't ignore it, which is where a lot of people go wrong.

Ok, I lost what I was saying, but yeh, from my experiences, breeding is very hard and tragic.
 
im not a breeder however when i was 15 i had a buck and a doe i started fantasing about babies and bred my 2 buns both were from a petshop when my doe gave birth to 6 kits it was amazing she was agreat mum however 4/6 babies ended up with bad health problems froma few weeks oldbeing dental probs, problems with their eyes etc. it cost my mum a fortune and meant that those babies were unrehomable. i wish if i could have turned back timei would have and not bred not only are you taking risks witha doe but your also gambling on the babies health/life which is why i always stress to people to know the genetic history first.

my second litter of 3 mum got ill stopped producing milk when babies were a couple of weeks old 2 died and one scraped life by a thread i had to take lots oftime off work which lost me lots of money to handrear them.


 
Flashy wrote:
The last litter where everything went fine was down to better knowledge from me and help on this forum and from a breeder friend who chose me an excellent ladygirl for my buck. I'm not experienced now, but I know the theory and I have SO much more knowledge now than ever before and think that is so important. If you have the knowledge, use it, don't ignore it, which is where a lot of people go wrong.
Click to expand...

I think you've brought up a very good point here. I've found my breeder resources (this forum included) invaluable. To date I've spent almost $300 on rabbit resource books (veterinary medical textbooks don't come cheap) and each one has earned its keep several times over.

Education is never a bad thing.
 
No I dont think its over exaggerated mainly because a lot of teh breeds that are common as pets are small breeds such as nethies, lionheads mini lops etc! though blue giants has prooved size does not always matter and giants can have problems as well.

Personally I have had many dead kits, pencil kits i have had kits born prematurely and not fully formed. I have lost a doe.

I find its a case of breed them to early or to late and you are putting the risk factor a lot higher. I also have to agree with W5skittles that teeth problems can be an issue especially when you do not know the back ground to the parents. I have had some teeth problems as nethies are prone to it because of their flat faces as well.

breeding isnt easy its just people seem to think its is as they tend to only really see the nice babies and not always the issues that go with it.

example: my last litters I mated 2 does at the same time as one is my main mama who is a big ugly doe and is great to breed with a first timer and boy was I lucky i did. the other mum had 3 babies but 2 were peanuts and fatal died pretty much as soon as they were born. leaving a lone baby. Miffy teh BUD had 3 nice healthy babies (thats a small litter for her!!) and as a surprise teh doe we had brought home to mate with Bill had 3 unexpected babies (her breeder had thought she hadnt taken!!) probably cause she was in a strange place she scattered her nest only one of her 3 survived and again for its sake we put it in with Miffy so now Miffy has 5 and a better mum you couldnt find but we lost 4 out of 9 babies.

that happens a lot with nethies
 
Well, NZs are really considered hard to breed so I'm not sure I'll be of any help here. Still, there are problems. I've done alot of research before purchasing breeding animals to see what their parents were like. For example, in a stud buck I want an animal that has exceptional conformation as well as the "want" to breed. Some bucks, hard to imagine as it is, just don't seem interested. As for does, I talk to the breeder to see if the dam kept all of the kits in her litters and also if she kept her first litter, builds adequate nests and milks well. I've had does that time after time just don't want to build warm nests or will only raise three or four of their young.

Other than that, as long as you take care of the does as well as possible I don't run into much. Again, we don't have the dwarf breeds either though so we don't have to worry about the peanut issue.
 
I too read what happened with Becca's Fluffball and was sorry things turned out the way they did. My condolences Becca :rose:

From reading on the forum I gather a "peanut" is a kit that has not developed properly physically and is likely to die very young if it does survive the birth. These kits are recognisable by their quite square shaped large heads and small bodies. However I'm not totally clear on what a "pencil" kit is and why birthing them is so hard for the doe. Expanation please? :)

Thanks!

Jo xx
 
A peanut has a double dwarfing gene, which causes the deformities and leads to the kit dying, normally very early on.

A penicl kit comes out very long and thin. It seems to happen in older does, first time mums, sometimes the first kit in that particular kindling, and I believe is due to being too big to pass through the tubes/hips successfully, so it gets compressed and made longer and thinner, and suffocates inside, so doesn't live. As I understand it these kits are healthy in the womb, its just the birthing process that leads to the kit dying. Now, all that is what I have picked up, learnt or presumed, so an experienced breeder may come along and disagree with that and explain further :)
 
I've been breeding about 10 years. I'm not a "commercial" breeder. My does generally have 1-3 litters a year. I've kept computer records on all litters for the last 7 years. If I add up every breeding and every litter, I get the following averages:

Successful Breedings: (defined as babies being born): 81%

Live Births: 88% (12% losses only include DOA)

Live Kits to Successful Weaning age: (of the live births) Flemish: 86% Mini Rex 83% Dutch: 87% Palomino: 92% Jersey Woolie:60% (ugh! Don't ask!)
(Losses include litters killed by the doe, Double dwarfing -"Peanuts"- in Mini Rex, genetic issues, nestbox injuries and infections, weaning issues like mucoid enteropothy, etc.)

Lost does (within 10 days of kindling): 2% (over all breeds, with a great deal of attention paid to nutrition, breeding, etc.)

Litters born that ALL babies born grow to weaning age: 59%

I don't think we "blow it out of proportion". There are serious risks involved. And we have to decide if we are willing to take the risks. Some of them are partially preventable, some are totally avoidable with proper education and preparation. I think we have an obligation, to anyone that asks our advice about breeding, to help them assess the potential risks and decide if they want to chanceit. Or if they are up to coping with dead or deformed babies, stuck kits, health issues like infections and injuries, vet care for 6-8 rabbits, finding homes for the babiesor housing and feeding the babies if they don't find homes.

We all love our rabbits. No doubt about it.We all have to make daily decisions about our animals. And we have to live with our decisions, regardless of the outcome.
 
Its reassuring to hear that even though my kit survival rate is fairly high, I'm not just blowing smoke when citing all the problems that can come up when breeding rabbits. :p

Blue Giants, those are amazing statistics.


 
Regarding Pencil Kits and Peanuts.

Flashy is right. The typical "Peanut" is a genetic deformity. Dwarfs and Mini's need to inherit the dwarfing gene from a parent to stay small.A peanut inherits 2 dwarfing genes ("Double dwarfing"). It isalways fatal. The kit born with such a defect generally has an unformed digestive system and can't absorb or process nutrients. As Pam has pointed out, there arehundreds of causes of dwarfism that have been identified. Some are survivable, some are fatal.

"Pencil kits" is a term that breeders give to babies born that are long and skinny, pencil like. They look like they were squeezed through a narrow opening. They are usually born dead or die immediately after birth. Causes of Pencil kits can be Does that are too small to birth that large a baby (from breeding toolarge a buck to a very small Doe), or breeding an older Doe for the first time... as a Doe ages, her pelvis (bones and cartilage) becomes less pliable, the kit has trouble fitting through the opening... Or it could be a genetic defect within the doe herself. This is where the problem can arise with stuck kits. If the uterine horns can't push it out, the doe can become septic and die.


(Having trouble with the Forum... hope both of these posts goes through...)
 
I would like to add another complication - a hidden one -and its not physical. Its something many may not think of.

When most of us who have bred before buy a doe for breeding - while we love it and care for it (and may bond to it like a pet)....I find for many breeders - there is a different mindset about that rabbit than a pet rabbit.

This isn't true for all breeders - but it is true for many. You see - we bought that rabbit to be part of a herd - frequently to be a specific part of our breeding program. I've had some does that I've bought to breed - and wound up bonding with and now I can't bring myself to breed them (or breed them again) - because I am so bonded to them and don't want to put their life at risk.

I honestly think that when you have a rabbit as a pet...especially if you only have one or two rabbits as pets....you have a different connection to it and possibly a stronger bond than a breeder has to their rabbits.

Let me explain...when I first got my rabbits - I would spend hours every day laying on the floor to let them get to know me and crawl all over me. I would try to hold them as much as possible.

Now that I have so many - I have a few that are most definitely "pets" and get more attention - but I just don't have the same bond with my 100+ rabbits.

So if a rabbit from the rabbitry died- I would cry and feel bad - but not like I would be devastated if Miss Bea were to die or Isenstar were to die.

When I bought GingerSpice - I bought her to be a pet. I bred her (even against my better judgment) because I wanted more sweet babies like her....but she wound up having health issues from about 4 1/2 weeks post-birth....and I'll always think I eventually lost her at a young age because she just should not have been bred.

Anyway - I've rambled far too much...but I hope you can understand what I'm saying. It is different when I buy a rabbit for breeding vs. buy a rabbit for a pet. My heart feels different about that rabbit. I still love the breeder rabbit...but I have a different relationship with it.

Of course - other breeders may feel differently. I guess I feel this way largely because of my loss of GingerSpice.




 
Well put. Also, when our "breeders" are doing well at show, breeding and have an adorable personality it is so hard when something happens to them- we grow attached to them. I had one red doe, Sacajawea, who I absolutely adored. She was a wonderful rabbit on the show table and the sweetest rabbit I've ever had (along with a great momma). She passed away this last spring at the age of 6. I was devastated. I knew it was coming and I had lost her brother the year before but it was still hard. I do still have my red buck, Flame, who was the first Grand Champion red I ever owned (he's almost 7 now- and sometimes I think he could be possibly blind in one eye).
 
After reading the above statstic I was wondering has anyone kept statistics as to the relationship between the age of the doe and fatalities. I mean not in general but in specific numbers. I was just wondering from what age on does having their first litter becomes high risk. It did amaze me that Becca's doe at merely 11 months was considered too old and I must admit I secretely daubted that (sorry to everyone) But it appeared to be true. When do complications rise? From 9/10 months even?
 
Also very true. I find when we breed them later they don't do well later. That really doesn't seem to make sense but if I get my does breeding at 7-8 months I can easily have them still producing at 3 most of the time.
 
The "best" age to start breeding a doe also depends on the breed. Mini Rex does can be bred at 5-6 months. Palomino does can be bred at 6-7 months. Silver Fox can be bred at 7-9 months . I won't breed a Flemish doe until she is 8-9 months or after that... (I wont breed a Flemish untilshemakes Senior weight. If she doesn't make Senior weight by 11 months, shewill not be bred.))
 
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