Clover's First Litter

What a fun way to celebrate St. Patrick's Day--with a nest of new rabbit kits!

I bred Clover to McCoy last month, and then just watched to see what happened. Rabbit gestation is 29-31 days, so I had March 15-17 circled on my calendar. Clover didn't seem any different until about a week before, when she seemed, well, a little heavier. By March 15 she seemed a LOT heavier. I put the nesting box and a little straw in her cage around the 11th, and she mostly ignored them.

On March 13 Clover started paying attention to the straw. She picked it up and positioned it in the box the way she liked it. I gave her another handful each time I fed her, and she added it the the box as well. Around 9:00 on the morning of March 17th she started plucking her fur from her chest and tummy and adding it to the straw. By noon, there were little squirmy bunnies in the nest.

In this picture, the kits are two days old. I had to lift the fur off of them to get a look. Until they grow their own coats, they'll keep warm with a blanket of angora fluff provided by their mother.

It's hard to count them when they're all jumbled up in a pile, but I think there are seven, in several different colors.