No Velveteens

So...my Velveteen Lop female, Lily had 12 babies and today they would have turned 10 days old.

However, day after day, Lily killed off her babies.  First, she started by eating one each night.  After a day or so, she stopped feeding all of them.

I mixed up some formula and fed - along with stimulating - each baby.  I don't know why, but she saw they were being fed and then began feeding them herself.  But, she kept eating one a night.

A few days ago, she was down to 3 babies.  One baby was really fat and healthy.  The other two were being fed, but not as much.

So I was heading out the door one morning to go to class, and saw she'd eaten from the bottom of the rib cage down on the one baby...who was now dead.

Instead of taking it out (like I'd done with all the others), I left it in...hoping if she wanted more, she would finish that one and not kill another.

Oh - and keep in mind we never let her food bowl go empty.  She was also getting extra protein from the special food we bought her.  Her water dish was never empty either...she had everything she needed and no reason to eat her babies.

Then the next morning, the top half of the one baby was still there...but she'd killed the second baby, slicing it across the throat and down it's back.  I was devastated.

In one last attempt to save the single remaining baby, we separated him from Lily right after a feeding/stimulating.  This morning I went to check on him.  He had died during the night.  And because he was under a heat lamp...he inflated like a water balloon.  It was horrifying, heart-wrenching, and to me - very unexpected.

Why would I tell you this and leave in those details which make you think rabbits are evil mothers who care nothing for their babies and just love to kill them in their sleep? The answer is this - rabbits go off of instinct.  She wasn't 'killing for the thrill'.  She can't do that.  It's impossible.

But with many rabbits, their first litter comes and they don't know what to do...at all.  But almost every single time, after the first bad experience, rabbits learn from their mistakes and become really awesome, attentive mothers!

So with something as horrifying and disastrous as something like this...it doesn't make her a bad mother.  It doesn't make rabbits bad mothers.  It's part of the circle of life.

Now, if she has a second litter and treats them the same way, then yes, she's a horrible mother.  But I'm keeping my hopes up that she, like many other first time rabbit moms, just didn't know what to do, but will learn from this litter and become a good mother to her next.

So if you're raising rabbits and end up with a situation like this, don't be discouraged! Yes, it's sad, no doubt about it.  It's painful to experience as you feel so horribly for those babies.  But it's part of life and your female will almost definitely learn from this and do a much better job the next litter.

So consequently...there will be no Velveteen Lops in my near future.  And Lilac didn't take, so we'll see.  I'm still trying to decide how to move on from here.