THEY'RE HERE!

Genevieve's bunnies have arrived! NINE (9) fat wrinkled hairless little wigglers!


I've been checking on her every couple of hours. I checked at 7 a.m., nothing, but she had started to frantically pull wool (at last).


At 9:00, there was still nothing.


At 11:00, I went out to check and she was sitting beside the box licking herself. I didn't see anything at first, but then I noticed that the nestbox was full of wiggling babies! There were none born on the wires, to my great relief, and she was showing no signs of cannibalism, to my even greater relief. They all look the same color and I think they're all going to be black. We probably won't be able to tell them apart!


Because her fur is so long (my fault, mea culpa, mea culpa), I knew we had to cut up the fur she had pulled so the babies won't get strangled with it, so we took the nestbox into the house and pulled all the long fur off the babies and made sure they were warm and happy. I snipped up all the wool and put it back in and removed the placenta and any bloody hay or wool.


The girls are thrilled with the little guys. Ally took two and held them inside her robe to be sure they were warm enough. The rest of them, we wrapped and covered with a towel all together while I was cleaning the nest and snipping the long wool. I put the little buggers back into the box full of snipped wool and took it back out to the garage. We have a small heater blowing heat into Genevieve's cage. Kate has been checking on them every few minutes.


The second picture shows the nestbox with its wealth of fur and all the little bunnies are hiding in it. You really can't see them anymore, but if this was a video, you would see the fur moving.


Genevieve appears to be completely indifferent to them ... other than maybe a certain relief to have it all over with (or maybe I'm projecting ...). She sniffed the box thoroughly when we put it back in, but she's shown little or no interest in nursing the bunnies. My books say that nursing is a quick process for rabbits and just because you don't see it that doesn't mean it's not happening. I'm just concerned that with NINE (9) bunnies, some of them may not be making it to the dinner table. I guess we're just supposed to let nature take it's course ... but that's hard to do.


We're so happy and grateful that they arrived safely.