The rabbitry is getting up to 22 degrees Celsius on sunny days and
hovering near zero at night. We plan to backburry it in the summer
(2016) but until then we've stacked straw bales along the outside of the
north wall. We had to put in a wood stove for cold nights to prevent
the water in the automated watering system from freezing on cold nights
(anything around -15 or less).
After a few baby-less months filled with false
pregnancies, baby eating, and birthing outside of the baby basket, we've
finally got some success.
Lots of success.
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| Baby basket #1---each one is a different colour! There's six all together. Hard to see them all because they were a little cold and all trying to dive deeper into their nest. |
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| Baby basket #2---these ones are all white with some small grey/black spots. |
 | This is Ditto. She had five babies but two rolled away from the group and died of cold over the first couple of days. They are born naked and the moms don't sit on them like hens do to their eggs, so they survive through insulation (straw, newspaper shredding, and fur the mom pulls out of herself) and through body warmth (they all huddle together and take turns being in the middle). In the first few days if one or two get separated from the main group of babies, they can quickly die of hypothermia unless they find their way back to the group. In this pic they're about 2 weeks old so they've got enough fur on them to stay warm (hence why they've more or less tossed all the insulation aside). Ditto is super protective of them and they are getting so much milk from her---they are huge compared to the other babies! |
| Baby basket #3---I am sooo hoping the orange/grey one is a girl! |
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| Baby basket #4---Dora with her four little ones. |
