Lady Grey the Amazing

So if you read my last post you know Lady Grey was a gift to us. We were so scared to breed her that we waited and I am so glad that we did. I see the benefits of waiting till a rabbit is over 6 months of age before she has her first litter and her second litter which she had this morning (Easter Day) just makes my jaw drop.

I planned her first litter to be ready for before Easter figuring that they will sell and we cans have some income to cover the cost of food and I was right. They all sold. She had 9 babies and 5 survived. Her pen was semi outside and instead of using her nesting box she decided to lay her babies to the side. Well they all crawled out towards her and almost all died. When I found them I actually had thought they were all dead. I scouped them all up and carried them into the house to show my husband. As we felt the dred of her loss I felt a twinge. I kept them in my hands and placed them against my bare neck and chest area (I was wearing a tank. I do not go out and check on my rabbits in the nude). We were able to revive the five and the grew very well. One did an accident and almost died again at two weeks old which spurred the actions of replacing our cage bottoms. Jelly Bean, the runt of the litter, crawled out of the nesting box and couldn't get back in. She then crawled under the nesting box which is where I found her. Luckily I had decided that day to remove the nesting box because of how active they were getting. When I pulled them out I noticed one was missing. Thinking she may have fell to the other side I pull the box out and find her underneath. She looked almost flat like a pancake. Luckily she wasn't squished because of house the bottom sagged but the sagging was also what let her crawl under there for warmth. She was lathargic and cold. We warmed her up as best we could. We tried to get her to latch onto her mom but Jelly Bean just kept falling asleep. We placed her with her siblings figuring we would lose another one but the next morning she was spry and alive. She was full of energy and back to normal.

Her second litter today contains 10 babies and so far all of them are alive. Again she didn't want to use her nesting box but we had her inside in the nursery since we were having some chilling nights. Instead of her nesting box she piled up all the hay we gave her and made a nest. It was pretty impressive. I feel bad cause I tore it apart to make sure all the babies were found to be put in the nesting box. It looks like she will have potentially three self black rabbits. The sire, Prince Charming is a pure bred New Zealand so his others genotypes for colouring is hidden so it will be interesting on what is from her and what is from him. I learned a lot about her colour make up from her first litter and some of the hidden secrets to Bill Gates. Lady Greys father and her mother both had some Californian so it will be interesting to see if some of this litter may look Californian. There are quite the few pinkies.

Lady Grey is definitely a high producer and is a lovely colour with some hidden jems. She is a valued breeding doe to the Robinson Rabbitry.