Baby Bunnies!!

 I am so excited!!   We FINALLY have baby bunnies.   Our Dutch rabbit Brownie had 7 kits (that's rabbit talk for babies) this evening!!

My family and friends who know my crazy rabbit story can understand why this is such a happy day!   The story is almost  emarassing, but since I don't have a problem laughing at myself I'll share it with you. : )  A little over a year ago I decided I wanted to raise rabbits.   When I was growing up my dad raised rabbits and I loved it.  So I studied it out and decided on Dutch bunnies for reasons that aren't really relavent to this story. Anyways, me and the kids built a hutch (which is a story in itself :) and we invested in 3 bunnies, and imagine if you would, 3 Buccheit workers, 2 kids and a mom standing in a circle in the store trying to decide if the bunnies were male or female.  According to the employees we had 2 girls and 1 boy.  I kept saying "hmmm, I just don't see the difference"  but 2 girls and 1 boy is exactly what I wanted so I went with it.  The time came that they were old enough to breed.  I often found myself looking to see if we indeed had 1 male and 2 females.  I'd say "hmmm,  they look the same to me" but I would breed them anyway.   They did what they were supossed to do, but I was still not sure.  I had read that doe rabbits do "that" as a way of defending their territory.  After MONTHS and I do mean MONTHS of trying to breed with no success,  I decided that they must all be females.   We located a male dutch bunny and the lady assured me that it was indeed a male.  When we picked it up she tried to show me, but you know what...I just didn't see a difference.   At this point we were racing with time.  A female doe is suposed to have her first kit before she is a year old, otherwise she could die while giving birth.   Our male rabbit was not of age so all we could do was wait.   As he got older I checked again, and what a suprise I had....you really CAN tell the difference lol!  There was no doubt!  We now had a buck and I couldn't help but laugh at all my attempts of breeding female rabbits together.  Today all the waiting and false attempts have paid off.  I was litterally jumping up and down in excitement! 

In my inexperience I wasn't even sure if Brownie was pregnant, I was very concerned because she is a little over a year old.  She started pulling her hair out today(she had did that once before with a false pregnancy)  so I put her nesting box in and a good thing I did, about an hour and a half later we had babies!  All went well and from what I read 6 kits for a dutch bunny is a large litter and she had 7!  

Bethany wants to temporarily name them (she knows we can't keep them all)  Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday.  I was hoping for Basil, Nutmeg, Cinnamon, Paprika, Ginger, Clover and Rosemary, but since she takes care of the rabbits more than any of us, I think I'll let her have her choice. :):):)