Reasons why a female rabbit eats her rabbits

Okrol is a joyful event in the activity of a breeder, farmer or ordinary owner of a domestic rabbit. One of the most well-known problems associated with the birth of rabbits is considered to be eating and injuring the offspring of their mother. Why is the rabbit eating her rabbits? There can be many reasons.

Why does the rabbit eat her rabbits

The rabbit eats rabbits because of stress, lack of water after childbirth or the missing instinct of motherhood. It is important to remember that rabbits in domestic animals In terms of wildlife, they differ from their wild counterparts, very often the root of the reason why the rabbit eats rabbits lies in the primitive instincts of the animal.

In the wild

In the forest, the eared allow yourself to grow defective offspring, so at the slightest hint of this, the female ceases to feed and destroys the rabbits. The same thing happens if the offspring is too large. In this case, the cubs are born smaller and weaker.

For a rodent, this serves as a signal to the rabbits’ poor ability to live, and the female, without a shadow of doubt, kills them. We propose to consider in more detail the reasons why the rabbit eats her rabbits, as well as ways to avoid this trouble.

Reason for harming female rabbits

In fact, the rabbit has many reasons to eat rabbits. Sometimes it’s the age of the female. The first rodent in a rodent can occur at 5 months of age, but it is worth the rush. A young female does not have the necessary experience to do everything right. There is an opinion that the rabbit eats its cubs immediately after birth or even during this process. But such cases are extremely rare. Most often, the offspring in the first week suffer from the actions of the young mother.

After the round, the rabbits should be carefully examined. The bitten stomach of the cubs indicates the inexperience of the female in an attempt to cut the umbilical cord. If the legs and ears were crippled, the baby could not get out, and my mother tried to help him. The rabbit can accidentally injure the baby’s head, trying to remove the film from it. The teeth of rabbits are extremely sharp, and sometimes pets can not calculate the strength of the bite. Typically, such incidents disappear in the second or third round, but if the rabbit continues to mutilate the offspring at the birth stage, she is unsuitable for divorce.

Sometimes a young rodent does not even understand what happened to him and therefore tries to destroy the source of stress – the rabbits . The first few days it is important to carefully monitor the behavior of the young mother: if the rabbit ignores her cubs or, on the contrary, behaves too actively, then perhaps she lost her maternal instinct. In this case, the rabbits are usually transplanted to another female.

When instinct fails

Maternal instinct is a set of norms of behavior based on the desire to protect and preserve offspring. Thanks to this, animals are able to survive and breed in the wild. However, very often more than half of the offspring do not survive in natural conditions. That is why the frequency of okrol is 4-5 times a year.

Why does the maternal instinct disappear in females at home?

A common reason for this is the reduced risk of danger. A rabbit raised on a farm does not feel the threat from the outside world as well as in the wild, and therefore is less interested in protecting her cubs. There are other possible reasons for the loss of instinct:

• stress after childbirth, especially after the first;
• cramped, dirty or poorly equipped nest;
• too much people;
• odors and loud noises;
• fussy surroundings;
• the presence of domestic predators (cats, dogs).

In any case, it is impossible to establish precisely the reason for the loss of the maternal instinct. This happens individually for each individual, the answer to the question what to do? also individual.

The rabbit can stop feeding and destroy inferior individuals.

Sometimes the cub can be eaten if the female accidentally crushed it. It is also one of the primary instincts.The corpse of a baby rabbit can attract the smell of a predator to the nest. By the way, not only a rabbit can eat dead rabbits, sometimes rats or birds of prey do it.

In addition to the loss of maternal instinct, lack of water can serve as a reason for eating offspring. The animal body is very dehydrated during childbirth, so you need to make sure that the pet has access to water during the round-up, otherwise the rabbit herself will look for a way to compensate for the lack of fluid in the body, and the easiest way would be to decide to eat rabbits.

Very often, rabbits can harm their cubs due to increased aggression. Its reason is the desire to protect rabbits from possible danger. It is not necessary to touch the cubs and the female during feeding, it is important to surround them with a calm environment. The rabbit must feel completely safe, otherwise she often rushes to the aid of the offspring and often crushes him. Sometimes rabbits begin to eat cubs if they were born more than 6 in offspring. Such babies are usually weaker and the female considers them unsuitable for life.

Methods of combating cannibalism in rabbits

In fact, with a properly equipped nest and good Ethan rabbit rarely eat their young is important to remember that pregnancy and childbirth -. This exhausting process for the animal Most nutrients the body can not develop on their own.. During pregnancy, a lot of vitamins and minerals should be added to rabbit food. For this, ordinary nettle scalded with boiling water is suitable. It is also recommended to give other types of greens: plantain, sorrel, carrot tops. It is not superfluous to mix bone meal and chalk into lure: the future mother may not have enough calcium in the body of the future mother. Before contact with a pregnant female, one should not sprinkle perfume and smoke: rabbits react sharply to pungent odors.

Special attention deserves a special place for the first days of life of rabbits. A properly equipped rabbit nest can guarantee the peace of the female. After deciding to make a nest yourself, you should follow simple rules:

• preferably use a closed wooden box and natural bedding (straw or hay);
• the location of the nest should be quiet and calm, without drafts and pungent odors;
• the box should be insulated in winter, ordinary bottles of warm water are suitable for this;
• the nest should not be accessible to other pets and birds.

A number of these precautions will help to avoid many troubles during the round. It is important that the rabbit feels as calm, protected and full as possible.

It is extremely important to pay attention to how mom feels after the round. If the female is breathing heavily, if her eyes are watery, and her body temperature is elevated, then the okrol was not very successful. In this case, the female is separated from the offspring, and the babies are transferred to another female.

Refusal of the female from the cubs and harm them: what to do?

The rejection of the female from the cubs is practically visible right away: she throws rabbits around, rushes about, sometimes crushes them. In this case, the babies should be placed with another rabbit, and do this quickly and accurately.The mother who abandoned the offspring is deposited in another enclosure, and the young rabbits are planted by the newly born female. In order for the other rabbit to perceive the refuseniks normally, you can process cubs and your own hands with wormwood. It is harmless to newborns and clogs the human smell. After a few minutes, you need to check: if the female did not start scattering the rabbits, then the adoption was successful.

Sometimes the reason for the refusal may be poor lactation in the rabbit. In this case, it is worth checking the female for mastitis. A breast massage can also help.

From all of the above, we can conclude that the rabbit is able to eat her rabbits for many reasons. It can be natural instincts, an inappropriate place for reproduction or stress after childbirth. With the right preparation for the fencing process, the risk of eating offspring is extremely low. It is also extremely important for a person to control the process of birth and feeding of rabbits. Rabbits are not carnivores and the female will not eat her offspring for no reason.