Rabbit kindling

I suppose the title of this post should be rabbit kindling: what not to do. But here we go…

Side note: a rabbit having babies, or kits, is called “kindling.”

Also, all of this information is very readily available on Google in many different ways. So I suppose this is more of just a story to tell, But in my mind perhaps there is another PCV or someone in a similar situation, panicked and trying to Google from a POS internet phone from their mud hut in the middle of the night.

Oh, where does this story even start? I guess a bit over a month ago. We had begun trying to breed the Wabbits. Wendy has been resistant every time we’ve put her in Walter’s cage. Wanda and Walt had…a moment awhile back. I can’t say for sure what happened because Andrew, Mike and I were all doubled over in laughter as Walt was mounting her face, so maybe we missed something, but suffice it to say it never, ever occurred to me that Wanda could actually be pregnant from their time together.

Fast forward to…let’s see. September 9. I posted on Facebook: “wanda the wabbit needs to recognize that the bunny that keeps me up all night making a ruckus is most likely to become fajitas.” Wanda had gone nuts. Running around, digging in her nesting box at night (side note: all of our female rabbits have nesting boxes…since any of them could have been pregnant when we got them, we left them in there. Also during the cold season they liked snuggling up in there at night. From what I’ve read, though, rabbits aren’t supposed to have their nesting boxes until they’re about to give birth). She had basically shredded the thing by this point; a 6-inch hole was missing in the bottom (this is a Priority Mail Service Large Flat Rate Box, by the way) and much of the sides were confetti. I think that night I got up around 3am and took the box away from her because she was driving me nuts. Scratch-scratch-scratch-scratch-scratch! Scratch-scratch-scratch-scratch-scratch! All through the night.

Fast forward a couple days. Andrew gave the rabbits some dried grass; they like to nibble on it, play in it, push it around. Wanda, however, that day, kept gathering all the grass she could in her mouth, until her lips were bulging out in either direction. And then just sitting there, mouth full of grass.

“What are you doing, you weirdo?” I kept demanding of her. And even, “Wow, you look really fat today.”

I’m pretty sure TLC has a “I Didn’t Know I was Pregnant” show. This is the rabbit version.

Seriously, didn’t occur to either of us that she could be pregnant. I mean, Walt was humping her face. If I had looked in the rabbit log, though, I would have seen the face-humping was a right-on-the-dot 32 days earlier. So he must have gotten something right.

Look, we aren’t totally negligent rabbit people. We’ve been doing tons of research. I just thought the for-sure sign of a rabbit about to kindle was her pulling fur out of her belly area to make a nest for the kits. We didn’t see this behavior. I really think if we saw that we would have figured this out.

So, that afternoon, I was at my neighbor Marjorie’s house in her garden for awhile. I went home and checked on the rabbits and was horrified to see a bloody something in the manure collection area under Wanda’s cage. I called Andrew over immediately. Then I looked up from below the cage and saw squirmy, gray little things, one of which was hanging by its neck from the gaps in the bamboo. I muttered a few expletives and announced to Andrew we had baby bunnies.

We got to work immediately to try and free the stuck kit from its chokehold. It was really, really stuck in there, though. Marjorie was walking by, I hollered to her to come and help and the three of us worked together; I suppored the kit’s weight from the bottom, Marjorie stabilized the head from the top, and Andrew took a saw to the cage to cut free one of the pieces that was trapping the little thing.

It worked: we freed the kit, and it appeared fine: lively, virulent, warm and squirming around. There were three more kits in the cage. Then Marjorie was like, “Look! Another one” and held up one she found on the ground.

Oh dear. As you can imagine, Andrew and I were feeling pretty frantic about the start of life these things were happening. Quickly we recovered Wanda’s nesting box, put some soft, dry grass in it, found something to cover the huge hole in the bottom, and carefully put the five warm, wiggling kits inside.

Wanda got to work pulling fuzz off of her belly, chest and legs to put on top of the kits. This is her first kindling; she must be figuring it out.

Wanda just after getting her nesting box back. Face full of grass and simultaneously pulling fur off. On the far bottom right, you can see where she’s putting the fuzz on top of the kits.

We were elated. Like, we almost managed to kill these things, but they’re ok! Hooray! But as time went on the elation subsided into fear as Wanda ignored the nesting box, ignored the kits, and just kept eating, eating, eating, and just sitting there.

Rabbits are prone to stress, and this was Wanda’s first kindling, and we definitely didn’t give her ideal conditions to give birth in. So as the hours ticked on – one, three, six, we got more and more worried that she was abandoning the litter, as is relatively common with stressed rabbits.

We went to bed uneasily that night. Around midnight I got up to check and Wanda was still just sitting there. I tried to get online to research what to do.

Here is the fact of the matter:

It can take up to 48 hours for a doe’s milk to come in. Because rabbits are prey animals, they do not stay with their litter; the kits have no scent, so the doe stays away from them to avoid attracting predators to them with her own scent. Rabbits feed only once or twice a day, for as little as a couple minutes. You may never see your rabbit nursing her kits, as she waits until it’s quiet all around.

Did I find this information on Google in my 45-second period of the network working? Of course not. The one site I was able to open had a detailed explanation of how to basically force a doe to nurse if she’s abandoned her litter.

So that’s what we did. For over an hour, I held Wanda in my lap, restrained, patting her, trying to make her calm down, while Andrew put the kits on her belly and tried to make them nurse. But she clearly had no milk.

In the meantime, I had texted my dad about what was going on and asked him to do some research. He came up with the above information and sent it to me around 2am, when Andrew and I were exhausted and gave up our attempt to make Wanda nurse.

So we realized that Wanda pulling out her fuzz was an excellent sign her maternal instincts were kicked in, and chances were everything would proceed as normal. But by the time we had learned that, we had just spent a couple hours causing her probably unbelievable stress by bringing her in our house, holding and restraining her, and putting the kits on her.

So, if she wasn’t going to abandon the kits before, the chances of her doing it now were pretty good.

The next day Andrew and I had to go to town for a couple days for meetings and the like that absolutely could not be rescheduled. We left soberly; Marjorie knew Wanda needed lots of extra food (she takes care of the garden and rabbits when we go away) but I told her to not tell anyone about the kits yet since, by then, we were pretty sure they weren’t going to make it. 16 hours after birth they were still warm, wiggly, and strong, but there was no sign of her nursing or even acknowledging them, so I was feeling pretty bleak.

And like a jerk, to put it bluntly. Because if those kits died, it was mostly because of our failed management, lack of oversight, and unnecessary intervention.

It was a bleak couple days in Solwezi. Lots of exciting meetings and we had other PCV’s coming to visit us, so that’s fun, but I had this cloud over me. Like those strong, active kits that, against the odds, survived their birth were slowly wasting away while their mother ignored them. I just wanted to know either way. Rabbits have high mortality rates at birth. I just wanted to know.

When we arrived back at site with our friends, I beelined to Marjorie, who was watering our garden when we got there. “Are they okay?” I asked, because she looked really excited. “Yes, and another one! Come and see!”

We were SO excited to see that, not only were Wanda’s 5 kits just fine, but Big Bonnie had just kindled that morning as well. No huge suprise there. We’d only had her for 2 weeks and…well, she’s Big Bonnie. Huge. Definitely no suprise there were some buns in THAT oven.

Bonnie had kindled 6 kits; one had died. I wish I got to examine it further but our friends were there and it was kind of chaotic and I didn’t think they wanted to look at/deal with a dead baby rabbit so Andrew disposed of it in the bush almost immediately. So I really don’t know what happened with that one.

So, despite our terrible management, we found ourselves with ten kits!

Wanda’s kits, 3 days old

Bonnie’s kits, 3-6 hours old

Whew! Relief! So we’ve settled back into having these rabbits, checking the kits every day, feeding the moms plenty, and overall just being very excited.

I’ve seen Wanda in the nesting box nursing her kits twice. I have never seen Big Bonnie even look at her kits. They are clearly being fed, though, and exhibit the “ping-pong ball belly” situation that is indicative of well-fed kits.

Adorable.

On day 2 of Bonnie’s kits, I checked them in the morning (it’s recommended to count/check the kits every day. They have a high mortality rate and dead kits should be removed immediately. Handling kits- gently – is perfectly safe) and counted…4. They aren’t easy to count. In those first few days it was a 2-person job because they were so tiny and so wiggly you couldn’t tell which was which. One person would hold a few kits, the other would count. That morning there were definitely 4. We searched the box, the cage, all around the cage. No sign of Bonnie’s 5th kit.

I’ve read when a kit does, the mother will eat it to clean up the nesting area.

Big Bonnie, did you eat one of your babies?

Our visiting friends are kinda vegetarians, so I spoke to Andrew in a low voice. “Bon-bon is a freakin’ herbivore,” I said. “Sharp teeth, but could she seriously have eaten a baby and there’s no blood, no spatter, no nothing?”

Andrew considered this. We looked at Bonnie.

She looked back. One blue eye, one black eye.

I’ve always been a little scared of Big Bonnie. I don’t know why. She’s nonaggressive. Well, that’s not true. She’s bitten me before. But that’s been when I’ve just been picking fresh greens. I don’t know how she can mistake my hand for some cilantro, but it’s definitely “Yum! What’s that smell!” bite more than a mean bite. A love nibble?

But this was not helping my underlying fear of Big Bonnie. Where did that baby go?

After some pondering, we decided yep, that must be it. It died, she ate it, she left no trace. Spooky.

Two hours later, Andrew was watering our tree nursery, and suddenly hollered “Holy $%@!”

Big Bonnie’s baby bunny found. Don’t ask me how it managed to wriggle out of the nesting box, out of the cage, and burrow itself a solid 8-10 feet away in the leaves in the ditch surrounding our demo plot.

Seriously. 2 days old and they are strong enough to wriggle that far. Blind, practically naked other than a bit of soft down, and in absolutely no control of their motor reflexes. But still strong enough.

Andrew and I call them popcorn. Because they kinda just snooze in the box, but if you touch one it projects itself several inches into the air, causing a chain reaction with all the other kits, and suddenly they’re bouncing all over the place, running into each other, crashing into the size of the box. I guess if you get to eat once a day for two minutes, you gotta be ready to go anytime.

So this 2-day-old kit was more than 2 meters from home, had been out of the nesting box for God knows how long, and had the tiny little carnivorous black ants that are everywhere here starting to gnaw on its genitals. More curse words from my husband and I. Quick action to fill a small bowl with very warm water (kits are extremely sensitive to changes in temperature, especially cold). We submerged it from the neck down to suffocate the ants. I held it while Andrew gently cleaned the ants off. The kit kicked its hindlegs wildly and spastically during this first swimming lesson.

When all the ants were off, we were like, Umm, okay. So, that’s that…back to bed with you?!? What else could we do? The kit seems fine so far, a few days later.

I really don’t know how many more ways we could screw up this rabbit thing. Clearly, though, they are strong, clever and resilient animals!

I hope I haven’t disturbed anyone with our accidental negligence and mismanagement. I hope maybe I’ve amused you and maybe anyone reading this who keeps rabbits or plans to can avoid some of the mistakes we make.

Now, the most important part: bunny pictures.

Checking Wanda’s kits – 4 days old

When it’s cold at night, the kits snuggle together in the grass-fur nest made by their mother

During the heat of the day, the kits wriggle apart from each other to cool off. These are Bonnie’s kits at 6 days old.

The kits are growing at an alarming, almost alien rate. Wanda’s kits were 9 days old when we last saw them on Friday and had not opened their eyes yet. Andrew and I have been betting on whether the kits will open their eyes first, or if their rapidly-growing ears will start to stick up first. We’ll find out tomorrow when we return home! I can only hold one kit in my hand at a time now, due to size and their strong wriggling. Bonnie’s kits especially are trying to jump, but they can’t stand up yet. One of the funniest things is how the mother, especially Wanda, likes to pretend the kits aren’t there. I’ll be reaching in her cage to change her water or feed her, and the kits will be having one of their periodic mosh pits in the nesting box, crashing into the sides so hard the whole hutch is shaking, and Wanda will just look at me like, “What? I don’t hear anything. Do you?” But periodically glance at the box. “Seriously, kids, Trying to keep it on the down-low here.” So, there you have it. A few dozen ways to screw up rabbit kindling…but all seems well so far.  

Um, kits? What kits?

Mid-September Update

It’s been a bit of a zoo here lately…we’ve been here, there, and then everywhere doing this, that and the other thing. I’m feeling a bit discombobulated but here is some of what’s been going on…

More rabbits!

A couple weeks ago, we rode our bikes to Mutanda, where we were met by a family of SUPER nice American missionaries who gave us a ride to their homestead at the Mumena Christian Outreach Centre, where they treated us to a lovely lunch and we then purchased three more rabbits from them.  Such wonderful, hospitable people! It was a long, hot day for us, though. We got a ride back to Mutanda, attached the rabbits to Andrew’s bike, and headed home. We rode where it was smooth and took turns walking the bike on the bumpy parts. I was definitely worried about the rabbits; it was so hot out and rabbits, while being very adaptable temperature-wise, are prone to heatstroke. When we reached a stream, Andrew lead the bike down, took off the leaves we had put on the carrier to shade them, and I took cupfuls of water in my hands from the stream to drip over the rabbits to cool them off.

They made it back to our site just fine. The first three we got were in shock for about a full day – basically didn’t move or eat at all. Suprisingly, these three adjusted much more quickly. They are older, larger rabbits and we plan to start trying to breed them soon.

Andrew working on the new hutch

 

Andrew and missionary Rick attaching the rabbit carrier to his bike at the turnoff of the path to Sandangombe

 

There are rabbits in there!

 

The final hill before our village

 

We named them Bonnie, Baxter and Barbie. The bunnies, of course.

 

Big Bonnie (who has one blue eye and one black one?!?)

 

Baxter

 

Barbie

 

Adult Literacy Classes Continue

The ebb and flow of these classes has been interesting to see. At first, the class in a village 3 or 4 kilometers away was the very serious, studious class. Over 15 students, over such a wide range of abilities that I’d split them into 3 groups for grammar and similar lessons and Andrew and I would rotate around, teaching the 3 groups simultaneously. This class had many men attend, and many people who finished 9th grade (a rarity around here). But lately the attendance has dropped off (people are starting to prepare their fields), and more and more KIDS are showing up. What can I do about this? At first it was just one girl, a very bright 6th grader, who attended, and I admired her pluck. But now the classes are tiny, and there are more kids than adults. Granted, the kids who come are very smart and on par with the adults, but they change the atmosphere. The education system here is different, so these kids won’t contribute, speak up, or ask questions. It makes a really weird dynamic. So that’s been kind of annoying. Part of me is like…I’m not a teacher! I didn’t come here to teach kids! But the other part says that if these kids choose to attend classes (or their parents make them) I should respect THEIR respect for education. Hmm…

The class in our home village started out as a bit of a mess…less serious, I suppose, and overall much lower skill levels to begin with. A smaller class, too: usually just 6 women. But I’ve come to LOVE teaching this class. It’s a bit of a zoo, but the women are super motivated and have a good time. It’s just a more fun atmosphere.  And I can’t say I’m really teaching English at this point; the theme lately has been farming, and we do dialogues and grammar and vocabulary…but also I bring in soil samples and we do field trips to our house to see the rabbits (and raid the strawberry patch). This is my own agenda talking, but I’m proud of them; for the questions they ask, like “How do you make your soil grow good potatoes?” and the like.

This set of statements came was produced by the questions of the group. I was so excited this was how my “English classes” were going.

 

The soil samples I brought to class…explainng things like organic matter and water retention is hard in any language…better to just look, feel, and smell.

 

Citrus budding begins

A few days ago, Andrew rode back to Mutanda because there is a man there with an orange tree. Our lemons (and the lemons of one of the farmers we work with) are of the correct size for budding, and September-October is the time to do it. So, Andrew brought back orange buds, and he helped our farmer bud some of his trees, then together we taught a couple of the ladies in our village (from Adult Literacy Class!) to do it, too.

Marjorie and Phillis budding trees for the first time. And, of course, an audience of kiddos.

 

They picked it up really quickly and budded several trees each. In a week, we’ll check the buds to see if they survived the transplant.

 

Happy birthday, Mike!

Mike turned 25 a few weeks ago. We made him a cakeish thing belatedly.

The frosting melted off and we had inappropriately sized candle, but luckily he’s not a picky guy.

 

As always, we enjoy our mornings on the porch with our coffee.

…and so does the cat.