Heartache on a homestead

Maya had a litter of 9 babies, I say had, as they have all passed away on Day 4. On Tuesday morning all of them were still fine, although I found that 5 of them were in a separate nest. After touching Maya to ensure I smell like her. I checked the 4 babies in the old nest and the 5 in the new nest and put them together in one nest. They all looked fine, if a bit on the small side but considering the size of the litter that was expected. I put them all back in the nest and covered them. I checked them as usually throughout the day and they were alright. I fed the mom and the other rabbits at 6pm as usual, nothing strange then. I checked again at 10pm when I noticed to babies looked rather starved and there was a little less movement in the nest then what I was used to. There wasn’t much I could do at 10pm and I resigned myself to the fact that I would loose those two. I also decided to pick up kitten  milk from the vet on the next day, in order to hand feed them, so as not loose more. On Wednesday morning, two babies where out side the nest, clearly dead. When I checked the nest, all the other babies were dead too and looked starved. I am beyond devastated at the moment but this is how life on a homestead works, the show must go on.

I am not 100% sure what caused the death. Little rabbit babies are only fed once a day in the early hours of the morning. Considering they died in the morning of day 4, it might be that mom forgot to feed all of them, which would confirm the timeline of passed away on day 4. Wish I would have noticed sooner, then I could have maybe saved a few of them L But they all wiggled and I didn’t want to put my hands in the nest to early. It’s another hard lesson learned.