I have four does due at the end of the month- Keep's Nova, Keep's Fiona, Keep's Puzzle and BL's Jiggy. Puzzle and Jiggy are up first on the 30th, with Nova and Fiona due on the 31st.
As I passed out nestboxes today, Jiggy immediately dove in and started moving around mouthfuls of hay. EEK! Fiona was last to get her box and I stood for a moment unsure of where she was in the barn- with the recent moving around of cages, I had lost track of her. I bent down to ask one "Are you Fiona?" but before I could get more than "Are" out of my mouth, I noticed a huge pile of pulled fur- yep, it was Fiona all right!
I am so excited that the two does are already working on their nests! Hopefully the other two will follow suit and I'll get a 100% baby rate this round. We can hope anyway.
I checked on Sunset's babies, who are hardly friendly at all. During some "forced snuggle time", I noticed the little buckling is very skinny. Meanwhile, the doeling is fat as a pig! I checked my calendar and realized that they are a touch over 6 weeks old now, so as much as I didn't want to, I pulled the doe to wean her. She has clearly been bullying her smaller brother and I'm hoping that some alone time with mom will help him bulk up a bit before I need to separate him out.
For some reason, mama bunnies don't intervene when there is a clear case of bullying- keeping others away from resources like food or water. I guess it's one of those "survival of the fittest" instincts, but I'm not going to let this little guy waste away because his sister is a piglet.
Finally, I spent a minute or two with Muse's foster baby, the little chestnut. Oh it is so adorable- and ran right up to greet me! This is a Poplar kid, so I know it's going to have that same "I'm a ham" personality. I'm looking forward to watching it grow up!
-Kristen
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