Burrowing doe!

by Taylene
(Port Pirie)

My doe has decided to dig a burrow under her cage. She has a nesting box which she has had a litter in before but she is pregnant again and she has started nesting in there. I don't know whether to leave her to her natural instincts or not.


The only thing I'm really not sure about is if she will pull out the deceased kits herself or not as the burrow is so deep that I can't reach down and check on them. Please help! She is due soon. Should I fill it in and put mesh over it or leave her be. I don't want to leave dead kits down there and have it effect the others.

***** Karen Sez *****

Sounds like your doe intends to use her homemade burrow this time around.

What to do? I can tell you that the doe won't pull out any dead kits. Dead rabbit kits tend to get churned into and underneath the bedding by the activity of the living kits. In a burrow, I'd think that as they decompose, the fluids would become absorbed by the earth, therefore not posing a huge risk to the living kits. Hopefully the doe will provide enough bedding within the burrow to satisfactorily protect all the kits.

The biggest concern however, might be whether or not the doe will tunnel to the other side of your neighborhood, or whether she'll simply provide a burrow sufficient for her kits?

Whether you fill in her burrow and return her to her cage and nest box is your call. You'll have better control over the whole process if the doe uses her nestbox of course, however the kits will probably be okay in the burrow. You'll simply have to wait till the kits start popping out above-ground - around 2 weeks or so - to learn how many kits there are. That, plus plan ahead how you're going to catch the little guys to check them for health!

Click here to post comments

Join in and write your own page! It's easy to do. How? Simply click here to return to Comments.

Protected by Copyscape Plagiarism Check Software

Double-Value Guarantee

Our policy is to always OVER-deliver on value,
which is why your purchase is fully covered by our
Double-Value Guarantee.

Go ahead - take any of our e-books for a test drive. Peruse our detailed informational and educational e-books. Examine our plans for building rabbit cages, runs, or metal or PVC hutch frames. Check out the Rabbit Husbandry info e-books.

If you aren't completely satisfied that your e-book purchase is worth at least double, triple or even quadruple the price you paid, just drop us a note within 45 days, and we'll refund you the entire cost. That's our Double-Value Guarantee.

Note: When you purchase your e-books, they will be in PDF format, so you can download them to any device that supports PDF format. We advise making a back-up copy to a drive or cloud account. If the books are lost, you can also purchase another copy from Raising-Rabbits.