2 new litters!!!

I got tired of waiting 'til they were old enough, so a month ago, bred both Cupra and Aurum.  They are the 2 French Angora/New Zealand Red  cross does I am using to try to develop a line of true red French Angoras.   Cupra (latin for copper) had 9 kits Friday in a neat, tidy nest, and they were so fat with milk they could hardly move.   Aurum (latin for gold) had 7 kits on Sunday PM.  I found them all over the floor, so I played find the small, squeaking naked crawling blobs under all the cages for a while.  I think I found them all.  She had hay everywhere in the cage, and had pulled wool, but none of it made it into the nestbox.   So I cleaned up the cage, formed a nest, lined it with fur, and then popped the babies in, plucked some more fur from her ruff and sides, and put the nest back in her cage.    Within 20 minutes, she had gotten into the box and fed them. 

This morning, she was running around with a mouthful of hay and fur, and the cage was a mess again.  I took the nestbox full of babies out of her cage, cleaned it up again, and gave her a big handful of hay to play with for the day.  The nestbox will stay on the grooming stand for the day, and I'll give it back to her tonight so she can feed them.   Meanwhile, Cupra's nest is clean and tidy, and her kits are fat and growing.   We may lose a couple tiny ones, but raising 7 out of 9 will be quite a feat for such a young mama.