What to Prepare Before a Doe Rabbit Gives Birth
📝 Summary
Before a doe gives birth, prepare well; how ready you are directly affects the kits' survival, since does eating kits or kits freezing are not rare. What should you prepare? Let's look.
1 Pre-Birth Preparations
1. Prepare a Nest Box Early
From breeding records guess the due date and ready a clean, disinfected nest box with clean bedding like sun-dried disinfected soft hay and poultry feathers. Whatever bedding, keep it clean to prevent infection. Put the doe in the box 2-3 days before birth.
2. Keep It Quiet
Before birth, avoid catching the doe and handle it correctly to prevent miscarriage. Keep unrelated people out of the rabbitry, no visitors. Also keep dogs, cats, and rats away to avoid fright.
3. Add Nutrition
Birth is quick, about 30 minutes. Three days before, stop concentrates and add tender greens to prevent constipation and difficult birth. Also give 7-8 soybean seeds soaked in hot water to promote milk after birth. After birth the doe is tired and needs energy, so pre-set food and drink like soy milk and thin porridge, plus carrots and sweet potatoes in the trough for free eating, to stop her eating kits from hunger and dehydration.
4. Help With Fur Pulling
A first-time doe may only gather grass, not pull fur; manually pluck some chest fur into the nest to promote milk. Fur in the nest protects the kits.
2 How to Care for the Doe After Birth
1. Clean, Dry, Airy, Lit
Keep the rabbitry clean, dry, ventilated, and well-lit, and disinfect regularly for the health of doe and kits and to promote milk.
2. Avoid Bad Feed
Do not let the doe eat frozen, toxic, or spoiled feed.
3. Enough Nutrition
Adjust the diet to her state and watch the milk to catch problems early. If milk is low or absent, induce it: feed bean cake or peanut cake plus 20-30 boiled soybeans each time, and add dandelion or fresh apricot leaves. Also keep clean water near body temperature available.
4. Prevent Mastitis
Check milk output and adjust feeding; if kits are small but milk is abundant, use milk-promoting and hot compresses. Clean the nipples daily with a hot towel, disinfect with veterinary iodine when needed.
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