Nestbox News

GC Shepherds Sweet Pea in her BIS chair at Delmarva

When you have a long awaited angora litter you want to give the new babies the best of care and when they a really special litter then you are even more on guard. I gave up using the regulation metal nest boxes many years ago when I had frozen babies. I then gave up wooden nest boxes because they were so hard to clean. What to use as a replacement? Plastic sweater bins work out great for me. They are the size of an English Angora (I use shoe box size for the Jersey Woolies), easy to clean, they stack together and are see through. They have a smooth lip around the top so the babies seem to stay in the box when Mom jumps out. The only problem was they are light weight and the Angora Moms like to throw them around the cage. I did alot of experimenting to keep the boxes in one place. First I tried wrapping bungy cords around the sides of the box and hooking it to the sides of the cage. This worked for awhile until the Moms found out they could chew through it. Then I used bungies outside of the cage by hooking it over the edge of the box pulling it down and hooking it to a lower cage. This was alright but then I found these mini clamps and they work perfectly. They are like clamps or plastic clothes pins and they hook over the cage wire and pinch the bins in place. Perfect!
Keeping the nest box clean and safe is also important. Depending on the weather and the Mother bunny, I might keep the nest in a safe place and bring it to Mom once or twice a day. If it is left in with the Mom, I take the nest box out of the cage at least 2 times a day to make sure the babies are doing well, Mom is feeding them and that they are not tangled in wool. Angora wool makes yarn and it will do that in the nestbox with wiggly babies moving through it. The wool can easily get wrapped around a leg or a neck and really hurt or kill a baby. Clipping the doe short before she has babies are born, will start the pulled wool off at the right length. I then go back and cut up the wool in short bits mixed with hay to keep it safe. You want to clean out the soiled hay and wool regularly to prevent illness and nest box eye. Holding the babies at an early age really gets them used to the sound of your voice and makes them so comfortable with humans as they grow into adult bunnies. But there is nothing as cute as a baby angora bunny!