How Long is a Rabbit's Pregnancy?

Rabbit Pregnancy

In the fall of 2016 we moved to Janesville WI , and lived in a small house in the city. Our dream was to have animals, in the spring of 2017 someone gave us a free female rabbit. We wanted to have a  rabbit farm business.  In order to make money off the farm business, we had to breed the female rabbits and sell their babies. The first step was to get a male rabbit. We ended up getting a free male rabbit on craigslist, we named him Blacky.

Rabbit Pregnancy Age- Is That a Factor?

We put the male and female in a dog cage, and within a minute we saw our male rabbit breed our female rabbit. Months went by but there was no sign of baby rabbits, it was kind of disappointing. Soon we found out that it took thirty one days for a rabbit to have babies. We think the reason why our rabbit did not have babies is because our female rabbit was five years old.

How many rabbits in a litter?   

 

So we found another free female rabbit, and at the end of the thirty one days it had six babies. One of the babies died because the mother rolled over on it when she gave birth.

This is a picture of one of the baby rabbits.

       
                                             
Once they were four weeks old, we started giving them high protein pellets. 

Here is a good place where you could buy a waterer for your rabbit. We still use this one, only we use it for our chicks!

https://amzn.to/2GGcVE3

Kid Goat Care (Week 1)

Baby Goat Kids

One of our does had babies today, so we are going to show you how to take care of a newborn kid goat for the first week. 

Our doe (Roses) had triplets on 3/28/2019. After the kid goats were born, we quickly wiped of their noses and mouths with a clean rag, so the kid goats could breathe. 

Then we wiped clean their entire body, and kept them warm under a big, warm rag. We waited for our doe, Roses, to give birth to the rest of her babies. 

The first two babies came out fine, but the third kid goat's hind came out first, so we had to quickly, pull the kid out of our doe, and wipe it's mouth and nose so it could breathe. 

Roses' placenta

1st Time Moms

       When most of our does had baby goats, they didn't clean them up after they were born. They weren't to interested in their babies. We think this is because they never had babies before.

So, if you have a doe that has never freshened before, you should try to be there when your doe gives birth, just in case. 

One of our does, Manna, had triplets. The first and second kid Manna had, Roses licked clean. Roses didn't lick her babies when she had them, but she obviously caught on. Now she cleans off every baby goat she sees!

Milking Roses' colostrum

            We weren't there to see Manna giving birth to two of her babies. Manna didn't know enough to lick them clean. If Roses wasn't there, both of those baby goats would have probably suffocated! 

Goat Labor Problems

The last baby goat Manna had came out the worst way. We saw a white tail come out of Manna's hind, but there was no legs coming out! 

Quickly we looked up what to do about that. We realized that we had to put on rubber gloves and stick out hand in Manna's hind to grab the babies legs. 

Did I mention that our parents were gone? We tried calling them and they didn't answer. 

So we had to do what we thought was best at that moment.

We couldn't get the legs, so while Manna pushed, we pulled the baby goat out by the kid goats hind. Since it didn't have air for a while when we were figuring out what to do, it came out dead. :(

But thankfully, Manna was OK.

      After the triplets were born, we weren't sure if Roses was going to have another one. Then we saw a bubble like thing called the placenta hanging from her hind, so we knew she was done.

Placenta Important Info!

Do NOT pull the placenta from your doe, it could damage her insides. We found that out the hard way, but she's fine now.

We put the newborn triplets into a insulated room with a small heater, with the temperature set at 40 degrees.

Bottle Feeding Kid Goats

           Right after kid goats are born, you MUST feed the kid goat the mothers colostrum. If you don't want to bottle feed your kid goats, you should just make sure it sucks off their mother. If you don't feed the kid goat the mother's colostrum, the baby goat's health will go downhill fast. 

Since our doe, Roses, is a first time mother, it was hard to milk her because her udder was small. 

Just to be safe, after our milk pail gets kinda full, we put it in the kid goat bottle. That way, if our doe kicks over the milk pail, the kid goats will at least get a little bit of milk. But so far, that never happened...yet.

Pouring some of Roses' colostrum, into our bottle.

First Time Feeding Goat Kids

       We are to cheap to buy a normal lamb/kid goat, or baby bottle. Instead we just use our old lemon juice bottles. We bought a couple bottle nipples for $5.40. 

These bottles worked great. You just need to make sure to cut the opening on the top bottle nipple a little bit. We found this is easier for the goats to get the colostrum out. 

The first time milking is the hardest, after that it's easy because they are quick learners.

• Put a kid goat our lap 
• Press two of your finger together on the opening of its jaw, to pry its mouth open
• Quickly put the bottle nipple into the goat kid's mouth
• To help it suck, lightly squeeze down on the baby goat's mouth, and make sure that it is getting some milk
• Then keep repeating those steps

Your kid goat should learn how to suck in no time!

Our three day old kid goats. :)

How Much Milk?

      Your doe should give enough milk for their kids. We feed our kid goats until their belly gets a little bulge on each side, then we stop. 

We feed our kid goats twice a day. The internet says to feed four times a day, but we didn't experience a problem yet, feeding them twice a day. And we don't have enough time to bottle feed them four times a day.

Milking Time

We milk our does at 8:00 am and 5:00 pm. Make sure to milk your does at the same time each day.

Kid Goats going by Clint

When Can We Drink the Milk?

           After about 2 weeks, your does should stop giving colostrum and give real milk that you can drink!! 

Don't drink the colostrum, because it tastes awful. Yes, we actually tried it once, and we are not drinking colostrum again! 

Our Saanan/Nubian Kid Goat in the Past :)

If for some reason, your doe is not giving enough colostrum for your kid goats check out the link below...

Kid Goat Milk Replacer

When our kid goats are about three days old, their umbilical cord should be dried up, and it will fall off in about 4-6 weeks.

We hope this helped you!!


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Kid Goats first time outside...

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