Difficult Choices

Breeding rabbits is difficult. You start thinking that they are just these fluffy ball of fur that eat and hop and hump if they get the chance to but what do you do after?  What do you do when your rabbit has a large litter?  

A female rabbit only has 8 nipples and Lady Grey had 10 kits. I didn't want to feel to intrusive sticking my hand in the nest twice a day so I waited 48 hours. By that time I found one of the kits looked like it hadn't eaten ever. I tried getting it to latch onto momma. No go. The baby just didn't seem to know how to latch or couldn't open its mouth big enough. I also ended up getting a back paw in the face and a toe nail up my nose slicing it. Luckily I had just trimmed Lady's nails before that. 

I talked myself to the nature process. If this litter was born in the wild the kits would be in the nest on their own. I told myself that it would be better off with its brothers and sisters. I didn't get to check on it again till about 24 hours later. (My husband checked on momma but he ignores the babies cause Lady Grey doesn't like men and he didn't want to be attacked). I expected to find him dead but that wasn't the case. It was still struggling. I couldn't put it back. It was suffering. I decided to do the freezer. Lady Grey lost half her first litter because it was cold outside and she decided to not use her nesting box. By the time we found them they all looked dead. We brought back five and they were great so in reverse I figure this poor little angel could get a bit cold and just fall quickly into a deep and forever sleep. And that is how he or she went but I struggled with making that decision. 

It will be tough when I start to breed dwarfs and find peanuts in the nest. I guess eventually I will get used to it or at least numb to the situation.