Two placentas?

[murph72]

My Holland lop Clover delivered three live babies and two that were dead and not all the way formed last week. The odd thing is that it looked like she passed two placentas after the birth. I hadn't seen this before...two placentas from one birth. All her other pregnancies have been normal before this one. The three little ones are doing great, but I can't stop thinking about the double placenta. Has anyone had this happen before? Does it mean she was carrying a litter in each horn?

The buck I put her with is a first timer. He successfully mounted twice before she got ticked off and I removed her. I put her back in a second time later in the day but she wanted nothing to do with him and I removed her when she got testy with him (he's got great potential to show, so I didn't want him injured). I always thought pregnancy in both horns was likely if they were put together again days afterwards when the first litter was already forming in the womb. This wouldn't have been the case since they only were together that one time. :? Can you tell confusion has set in? LOL

 

[pamnock]

Superfoetation (double pregnancy)is extremely rare in rabbits. Rare cases have been documented in humans.

You normally don't see the placentas (1 per kit) because the doe eats them.

Pam

 

[murph72]

I have seen one before...actually numerous times with my Hollands...but never with my Lionheads. I have just never seen two before. Those two kits that were not formed made me start the guessing game. It was almost like half the embryos decided not to form...which I guess i found weird as I'd never seen this before, especially in this doe that usually has litters of 6 or 7

 

[pamnock]

Generally, when there is a defect with the fetus, it is reabsorbed very early in pregnancy. Occasionally, they may be carried and delivered at full term, but undeveloped. It is likely that for some reason, they simply stopped growing.

Pam

 

[SilverBirchRabbitry]

I have had a doe with double pregnancies, both sets of kits lived, but the doe had her paws full.

It was one of my agouti lionheads actually. She had a litter of 2 week old babies and then popped out another litter.

 

[murph72]

What was the time span between the two litters?

The two unformed babies were kind of interesting, in an odd-Science kind of way. The one looked like it had developed a normal body, but it's head never developed correctly....it's almost like it couldn't have been big enough to hold a brain. The second one seemed to get a trunk, but no extremities. I'm hoping this is not an indication of poor genetics on the buck's side as he's gorgeous. The three babies that were fine look great...so hopefully these others were just a flook.

 

[Flashy]

I had a doe give birth to one live baby, one abslutely huge baby and two semi formed babies. She had only been with the buck for one 'session'. What I suspected was that the pair had actually been identical twins sharing the same placenta because there were 3 placentas and four babies in total (mum didn't eat them). Thinking on it, maybe she just didn't eat the placentas of the dead babies. Maybe that's the case.

Just wanted to say my live kit is now three and perfectly fine, and dad went on to sire another 7 and there were no future problems. Hopefully it was just a blip of nature for yours too.

 

[Luv4lionheads]

I read about it. or somethink how they can have 2 uterus cavities so the doe can have 2 litters. idk i read it in this giant book about b-rabs,

 

[pamnock]

Luv4lionheads wrote:

I read about it. or somethink how they can have 2 uterus cavities so the doe can have 2 litters. idk i read it in this giant book about b-rabs,

Actually, a double uterus is common in mammals. In fact 1 out of every 2000 women have 2 separate uteruses similar to those in rabbits. However, "double pregnancies" conceived at separate times are extremely rare.

In all the years I "test bred" rabbits 2 weeks after the first breeding, I never had one rabbit get pregnant from the second breeding. I did however, have one doe give birth to offspring 4 days apart (from one single breeding).

Pam