Poor Ebony, she is definitely having a problem with her labor and delivery. This morning, 24 hours after finding the dead kit and birthing gunk in her cage, we found yet another dead kit. We are absolutely positive this one was not in there yesterday, it was born last night, and it was still-born.
Something is going wrong with Ebony’s body as far as getting these babies out. We are hopeful there are no more and that she survives this experience. We have lost a doe from this type of thing before. I don’t know what it would be called, non-progressive labor, or maybe the kits are stuck. But if she doesn’t get all the kits and all the afterbirth out of her body she will get an infection and die.
If this is the end of it, and she does survive, we are going to give her a few week to recover before we even think of breeding her. Clearly, her reproductive tract needs to get itself figured out.
Willow Creek Farm 
😦 So sad…I hope she recovers.
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Very sad indeed. Is it an age thing?
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Maybe, or a first litter thing. Now that I think about it, this has only happened in our rabbitry to first timers. One survived, one died, and now Ebony.
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Hoping things fair well. As for the one who survived, did you get babies from her? And did those babies have babies and fair well?? Or is it survival of the fittest and best not to use such a rabbit for a breeding program? Just find rabbit raising so interesting.
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The one that survived gave birth to all stillborns. They were stuck inside too long. She was showing signs of labor for 36 hours then gave birth. One was very large. We think that one was the first and got stuck because it was so big and the others died behind it.
I’ve seen that happen before with other animals that have more than one offspring at a time (dogs, cats, goats) during my time as a vet tech.
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Very interesting! Thanks for sharing and again, good luck!
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Poor, poor Ebony. I hope she fully recovers. Keep us posted!
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