Newborn Californian kits

Today marks the date of our very first purebred Californian litter. It was also Samphire and Scorch’s first litter and things couldn’t have gone more smoothly.

Samphire ripped her prepared nest box to shreds when it was put in (I should have known better than to line it with a paper feed bag!) and so I replaced the shredded bag with a new cardboard liner and she went to work getting it cozy. I use wire nest boxes so they need a new liner every time to hold the wood chips and straw inside.

Yesterday afternoon I noticed that she had started pulling fur, which is a first here. Generally all the moms here pull fur immediately before kindling and not a minute sooner. Fur in the nest box means kits in the nest box. I was pretty sure from all this motherly activity that Sam was going to do a great job.

Today I woke up to eight very pink and fat looking kits, all born in the nest box. There was one uneaten placenta that needed to be removed and a few kits had some scratches on them, but other than that things went perfectly. Now if I could only get the person who sold me these rabbits to finally give me their pedigrees. I’ve paid for them and I would like to have them, it’s been months now without any reply. Very frustrating.

Esther, my Creme d’Argent, was also bred to Scorch at the same time, but she has a habit of kindling on day 32. She looks huge, so most likely we will have even more new kits tomorrow. Yay!