I’m keeping my promise to track what the bunnies look like every day. I am actually glad that I am taking the photos because I have never done the baby rabbit thing, so it will be good to be able to look back and see what the progress looks like. I do know that they will be all furry and completely different looking in about a week. They will all also have their eyes open, which helps a lot with the cuteness factor.

I read an article recently about taking the nesting box away from the doe and only giving it back every 12 hours to nurse. In the wild, rabbits ignore their young except for at dawn and at dusk so that they don’t attract prey to the vulnerable babies. I was worried about the rain, wind and cold tonight so I was going to take them. When I got out there to take the box it looked like they had not all nursed for the night, so I decided not to take the box for the night. I took the ones with the empty tummy and helped them nurse as much as I could. A litter of 8 is a pretty big litter, so there could be a milk supply issue as they grow and start to demand more from their mama. I am hoping to leave the box out with Daisy tonight while she feeds and takes care of them and then take it if I feel that I need to in the morning.

I feel like I am seeing a change in the bunnies. They do have more fuzz on them. Rather than be bare skin, they feel more like velvet, which I find to be wonderful. They sure do like to wiggle. I was holding on after helping it nurse, and it was wiggling all over the place until I held it in a closed hand. Apparently, that was very comforting and the bun fell asleep on me. How sweet.

All in all, I think that I am doing a pretty good job as a first time mama for the babies.

This is one of the babies that I was helping nurse. The photos were taken within seconds of each other, that is how wiggly these little buns are.

Here is the whole nesting box. They were snuggled in to sleep when I left them for the night.

I’ve been stalking the nest for the baby rabbits today, and it is a good thing that Daisy really doesn’t mind one bit.  Daisy and I formed a special relationship when she was my only Angora bunny left in the herd.  She really brightened my day.  The more I get to know her and the more I learn about her and the German breed in gereral, the happier I am!

I spent the whole night worrying that it might be too cold for the babies.  We are having pretty mild nights in the high 40′s or so, but that can get cold really quickly for a bunny that wanders away from the warmth of the other kits.

They don’t look a whole lot different to me, but I know that in another week that they will have their eyes open and they will be covered with wool–future spinning projects to be exact, if not for me.  All of the black bunnies have a white stripe on their heads.  I’m not sure if that is normal or not.  It might disqualify them for showing, not that that is really where I am heading at this point with my first litter.

This is one of the white babies up close.  They were really hard to photograph because there was an awful lot of wiggling going on.

This is one of the black babies up close.

Today is Mother’s Day, and I was blessed in more way than one.  Besides my own baby, I went outside with Jared to check on some things, and we found a nest of bunnies in Daisy’s hutch!  Hooray!  I have been waiting for a long time for a successful breeding ending in live rabbits from my favorite girl Daisy.

Daisy is a 99.25% German Angora, and the only origional rabbit I had that survived the disease/problem that went through the rabbitry this past winter.  I bred her last month, but she ended up only having one stillborn baby that was deformed.  After immediately rebreeding her, I waiting anxiously hoping that things would turn out ok, and they DID!

I bred her to my only mature buck that I have right now, Poe.  He is 50% German and 50% French Angora.  I really do like him as a rabbit, but his wool is a little more coarse than I would like, and he has an awful lot of guard hair, which I find discouraging.  He is black.

The kits are 75.625% German Angora, if they resemble their mama, they will be really nice buns.  There are 8 kits, 4 black and 4 white.  It looks like they are all good sized.  I even saw Daisy hop in to feed them after I found them, and they all had nice full bellies when she was done!

I want to take photos of them every day to look at how quickly they grow, so stay tuned for those.

They are cute and adorable, what more could I want?