Although I raised rabbits once before....years ago, I am trying it again. Here's my question: One of my does, (NZ White) delivered 8 perfectly formed but dead kits. One of the things I noted was, the sacks were not removed from their faces, so they may have smothered. But in addition, the placental sacks were abnormal. They were hard and very dark, almost purple. The doe did not remove these and I found them on the fetuses. My doe then seemed to grieve horribly.....when I found the first two, she was sort of "moaning" and got very upset when I took them from her....but they were already cold and had obviously been dead for some time. Anyway, she had 6 more...same situation. I tried to help by pulling off the sac when she didn't, rubbing, blowing on them, everything....they were all dead, and again, the hard Placental sack. After all this, she (the doe) continued to bleed pretty heavy. After 2 hours I cleaned her off with wet towels and dried her. Tried letting her loose in the penned yard I have to see if she would perk up. Nothing helped. She remained what appeared very depressed....understable, considering. I held her and petted her. Left her in yard until night fall when I had a new clean cage ready for her.She refused to eat that day and the next. But then the NEXT day, another doe had a litter and tried to kill them.....threw them out of nest box and even tried to throw them out of the cage. Considering all this, I put them in with the first doe, who had lost her litter. She IMMEDIATELY perked up, started to nurse and clean the babies and for 2 full days was an ABSOLUTELY WONDERFUL mother. She even divived the babies into two groups in her nest box, and would first nurse one set, then the other, cleaning them etc. She appeared very satisfied and the buns were thriving wonderfully. The next AM, I came out to check on her. She seemed sluggish, and when I picked her up she was real "floppy". Examined her and she was bleeding again and her lips & nose had bluish cast. I wrapped her in a clean towel and tried to get her to eat a bit of apple, but about 5 minutes later she just flopped over anddied! What happened?? Any ideas??? She seemed to have recovered and was doing so well???? Thanks for any info any body.....have spent monring on net trying to find answers but no luck. As far as the babies she was nursing....I rubbed vanilla extract on another doe's nose, who had just had a litter the day before, mixed the kits together, and everybody's doin' great/ I just really wish I hadn't lost that doe (her name was Sarah) 'cause she just really seemed to love babies....anybody's babies, as long as they were babies!!
What was the age of this doe? Was this her first kindle? Waht feed are you using? More answers and we might be able to figure this out.
From your description, it sounds like she has or had been bleeding internally for some time, thus resulting in the hardened and dark afterbirths. Once she delivered, it cleared the way for more visible signs of hemorrhaging. I really doubt that anything could have been done to save her, as this would be due to an internal injury. I'm so sorry for your loss. Pat Lamar President Professional Rabbit Meat Association http://www.prma.org/
To answer your questions...I don't know how old she was, we just bought ALL 12 of our buns from a fellow about 2 weeks ago. She was on Tindle rabbit feed 18% protein. I don;t think this was her first litternot from the way she acted and not from the way she took the other babies....too good of a Mom. THANK YOU Pat, I sure was sorry to lose her though, she was really a cool rabbit!....I read later, somewhere, that after your buns are 3 weeks along in the pregnancy, they should not be handled or moved alot.....which of course, was right when we bought her and moved her and all that. BTW, checked out your site...going back now, looks very good!
My thoughts were internal bleeding also but I also asked about other kindling as I have had first time does have a difficult delivery and ended up dying the next day or so. If I loose a rabbit I will cut them open to see what is going on inside. I have had on a couple occasions found a stuck kit inside and I believe that is what killed them.
