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avarocks

avarocks

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Location
Niagara, Ontario, Canada
I'm fostering a mother and her baby bunnies for my local humane society. She came in as a stray, and no one even knew she was pregnant. Thursday morning staff arrived to find babies. She made her own nest and is caring for them properly - I'm keeping an eye on that. She is with me in foster care until her babies can leave her, at which point they'll all go up for adoption. She had 5 kits, no stillborns, everyone is warm and everyone is fed. She permits me to check this.

A few questions that I can't find answers to:

Is it safe for me to give momma things like fruit or craisins, or will that go into her milk and be too much for her babies? I give that stuff here, and she smells my hand when I go in to give her some veggies, but I'm afraid of giving it to her in case it makes the milk too sweet for her babies. Sounds silly I guess but I want to be careful.

The big one, can momma spend time out of the cage when she isn't nursing? She wants to - tonight I went in to look in on everyone, I closed over the cage top and left just for a minute to grab her some veggies. When I returned she had jumped herself out of the cage and was hopping around. She resisted going back in, too, but I had some supper for her and anyway I wasn't sure if she should yet. Obviously she wants to. Since bunnies usually nurse in the night, can I allow her some free time during the day? Not tons, I know, but could I give her an hour or so a day? Maybe give her some snuggles? I have a good rapport with her, she lets me check her babies and licks my hand even. She no longer hops to protect her babies when I come near. I do have my own un-neutered male in the house, but, when he's in his own bed he's secure in there so there will be NO chance of the two getting together. I'm not even going to lift her up and let them sniff each other - forget it. I'm not sure at what point she can have free time out of the cage. I pet her inside the cage now and she likes that. After her stunt today it tells me she wants out.
 
I don't see any reason why she couldn't have some time out of her cage. It certainly wouldn't hurt anything, and she would probablly really like it. Really the important things with momma buns, is that they are getting plenty of food and don't have something that is stressing them. Otherwise they just need to be with the babies once or twice a day to nurse. You may want to give her just a few more days to recover from having the babies though. She just had the babies last week right?

For the treats, I've had too many rabbits with GI stasis, so I don't really do more than a little bit of carrot for a treat. I'm pretty much too paranoid now to do more than that. I know plenty of others do give sugary treats, and I used to, just not anymore. My poor buns :( For a nursing mom, I'm not sure what sort of difference it makes. I think it more depends on how sensitive her digestion is and if she has any poop problems or is her poop normal.
 
Her poo and everything is normal. She eats everything I give her. I was going to wait at least a few more days too but she totally escaped and didn't want back in. I mean I caught her, and put her back in, but I just wonder if that means she feels well enough? I will gladly leave her in a few more days if that is what is best for her, whether she likes it or not. Her health and well being is my number one priority here. The way she escaped herself though, made me wonder!
 
She might be fine, but then rabbits don't always want to do what we think is best for them :) I was just thinking with her having given birth a few days ago, that if she got too spunky and decided to do bunny 500's, that it might not be good for her. I guess you could just let her out and keep an eye on her, and if you think she's getting to rambunctious you could just end playtime.
 
Playtime is fine for mommas. Ours aren't that bad but they do itch to get away from the little ones especially once they open their eyes and start getting out of the nestbox. The moms get super agitated and start hiding on top of the nestbox. If she is used to getting playtime letting her out once or twice a day for short periods is totally fine.

We don't feed veggies so I can't help with the craisin question.
 
oh she's getting itchy alright. the little ones aren't leaving the nest box but it's quite clear she wants out. my concern now is just that her babies are 6 days old, so her body may or may not be recovered from the birth. however, as the person above said, as long as she's not doing bunny 500's it should be ok. if she gets rambunctious, i can put her back. she isn't litter trained anyway, so it can only be shorter periods of time. i have to learn how to litter train, as i have a goal of litter training her before she returns to the shelter for adoption - then she can be more free reign in her furever home. people seem more interested when they're litter trained. i won't be training the babies - they'll just be too young. but i may be able to work on mum. not this week i'm not, for the rest of this week she's going to keep quiet and work on recovering from giving birth and nursing her babies, and quiet time out of the cage. i think she'll be happy to hop around and have some freedom. i think she's getting cabin fever in there and i don't blame her.
 
Having play time is definitely ok. I don't feel it needs to be in short periods either. You can leave her cage open and let come her and go as she pleases for really as long as you want, just as long as she's put back in at night. I've had a couple of litters born to a Mother who lived in a very large pen with plenty of room to run and jump and I've never had issues with them hurting themselves after birth. Female rabbits spring back extremely quickly after birth, not like us humans. It's because in the wild they can't appear as weak and like they've just given birth because they will be eaten. They are built to reproduce rapidly being a prey food basically just above grass on the food chain. If she was in anyway sore, she would know to take it easy herself :)
 
A few pieces of veggies or fruit are fine for the mamma. Be sure that when the babies come out of the box they don't get into the treats. They will begin eating at pellets and hay around two weeks old, and that is when babies digestive systems are in the greatest danger. Feed lots of hay if you can, as that will keep things moving in the gut. Since moms only nurse a couple times a day, I'm sure she would love being out as much as you will allow. Good luck with her.
 
She will be a happy girl. She was out for about 45 minutes yesterday, but after about 30 minutes she started pooping everywhere so I put her back. She also has to share her free time with my personal bunny who is an unneutered male. He must be locked in for her to be out and vice versa - she is NOT getting pregnant again. He was mad at first that she was out and he wasn't - he was stamping over it, but I ignored that and he got over it. I will be looking up the ins and outs of litter training so I can train her - as much for her time here as when she gets into another home. I made sure that right after I returned her to her cage, my own bunny came out. He was unusually all over me - not agitated or anything but followed me all over, jumping in my lap. I was on the floor with him and he was climbing all over me. I think just confirming that I'm HIS mummy. Actually it was cute and I just got on the floor and enjoyed the time with him. He is used to lots and lots of free time, sharing the free time will be a little upsetting to him, but it's only a couple of months. The days I am not well enough to supervise him, he has to stay in, and he's fine with that so I think he'll do just fine with this too.

Sarah
 
Mum bunnies will want to be as far away from there babies as possible, it's from when they were in the wild they'd stay far away so they don't attract foxes into their nests, so when my bunny had babies she stated out in her run all day to stay away from her babies, so she can spend as much time as she wants out of her cage :)
 
We're working on that...dividing the time between lavender and milo. i can't let her out all day cuz it's not fair to my own bun, milo, but certainly they can take turns and share the time. :)
 
if there's room in her cage, there's no reason not to go ahead and give her a litter box - just put it wherever in the cage she tends to pee and, if you can, put her hay in it or hay rack over/beside it... there's a decent chance she'll mostly just train herself. safe beddings are any kind of paper bedding (carefresh, kaytee small granule bedding, etc.), wood pellets from a feed store/wood stove pellets from a hardware store (make sure they don't say they have an accelerant added) or aspen shavings (NO pine or cedar shavings or clay kitty litter of any kind).

if you'd like to make a grid for her litter box so that she never has to stand in her waste (and to eliminate any chance of her being picky about substrate choice), there are instructions about 1/3 of the way down the first page of this thread - http://rabbitsonline.net/view_topic.php?id=53690&forum_id=93
 
I don't currently have something I can put in there, but she's a small girl so I'll find something small at the dollar store to put in there. She does do her peeing at one end so I can put it there. I can always bring it out here for her when she's hopping around so she always has a spot. It would be nice - Milo would have to share more of his time, but if I can give them half and half I think that would be ok. She's only going to be here until her babies are ok to leave her, then the group is going back to the shelter for adoption, so it's not like it's permanent. I think Milo can share in the interest of doing something good for a shelter bun :)
 
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