Have Kits...Will Travel? :-(

Even the best laid plans of mice and men…

John Steinbeck certainly knew what he was talking about. 

Hershey and Cimmerian's traveling kits

My carefully planned breeding of Hershey to Cimmerian was successful!  I was so thrilled that Hershey blessed us with four beautiful kits (3 black, 1 lilac)…so far, so good.  

Hershey is a first time mom so we were worried with all those regular first-time mom things…like, will she give birth safely?  Will the kits survive? Will she reject them?  Will she be a big fat meanie like Little Sun was (territorial…not really a bad thing with little ones)? Well, Hershey did what Hershey does…she is a great mom with her same loving personality and has a nestbox full of fat bellied babies.

We timed this breeding to give the kits 3 weeks before we’d have to move them to our new home. However,things don’t always work out as planned and I had to move them at 8 days. We carefully packed up the nestbox, Hershey’s pen, and all her accessories and moved everyone to our new house across town. 

Hershey at the new house... refusing to acknowledge me.

I timed our "new" move date to give Hershey plenty of time to adjust…but she’s a smart girl and knew something was up since all her bunny friends (and pens) were disappearing, one by one.  She basically bounced all around her pen and was super edgy.  I was concerned… but this couldn’t be helped. We decided to move her right after a feeding so she’d have the most time to adjust before nursing again. 

Whew...Success!

Once in her new house, Hershey settled in fairly well.  Still a bit edgy, I was relieved to see she was eating and drinking... even though she refused to bounce up and greet me like she usually does. The next morning, I brought the nestbox in for her to feed the kits.  She kept me waiting by repeatedly jumping in and out of the box. Her kits were so confused and demanded their mother... squeak, squeak! Eventually though, the urges of motherhood won out and she fed her babies.  The look on her face was hilarious! OK, OK, you win. No, Hershey…you win. Good girl! 


Thankfully, everyone is resting peacefully and I can breathe again.  

Disclaimer: I don't recommend moving a mother and new kits.  This was no fun at all...I think I lost 10 years off my life worrying.