A bizzare rabbitry experience

I'm in the rabbitry checking on Barbi, who's overdue. No babies yet . So, I go around just saying hey to everyone else and checking the temperatures in different parts of the rabbitry. I decide to breed a doe who just missed and when I stoop to unlock her cage, realize there are two babies on the ground....ALIVE! Both are nice and clean, and not really chilled (thank god for summer), but I'm warming them up anyway.

Now- my quandary... there are TWO does in that area that are due. These babies were right in the middle of the cages, so they could really belong to either one. I check the trays for signs of afterbirth and see NONE in either cage but WAIT......there is a white baby in one of them! And this baby is like, a week old .

My best guess is going to be it's from Shadow's litter, on the other side of the rabbitry, and it crawled half the length of the building and up in to the poop tray. I've got to go count Shadow's kids right now, I brought everyone in to get cleaned up.


I'm so confused at this point.


A quick nose count confirms Shadow is missing a baby, so I put the white one back in and vanilla her nose, since the missing baby smells like another doe's bathroom.

Now on to the newbies.

We found a 3rd living baby! A broken blackish looking creature. Broken is the key, one of the does is solid, one is broken, both bred to solids- so that means it has to be Oh Crap's babies! I thought she had missed, this would have been her 5th day overdue.

But...wait. Last night, a second doe kindled- a broken chestnut holland who is in the same area. She's small and had 5 babies living and 1 DOA, so I think it's reasonable to assume she didn't really have 9 babies crammed up inside of her........I think.

Barbi is a good mom, so we don't suspect that these belong to her- she's been pulling fur for a week in preparation for the arrival of her kids.

At least I'll be able to tell by colors in a few weeks- Oh Crap is broken black tort and the other doe is a broken chestnut. The good news is.........the baby daddy is the same for all 3 does in question .

The three foundlings are all marked with sharpie and living with the chestnut doe's litter. I'm hoping Barbi kindles soon so I can foster them over to her!

-Kristen