Hello everyone , today I'm doing this video to educate many people out there on how my own rabbit do some preparations before kindling ( I mean giving birth to young ones alive).
I always do this practices and it really helped me. I put the nest box ( yellow plastic ) in the cage on day 28 of gestation. Why? In a very heavy preparation for kits coming on it's way. I load the next box with rough materials, like hay, woodshave, vegetable leaves full before I put it in. Most of our does just eat the hay , green vegetables and ignore the box until they are 12 hours close or less from giving birth and then they rush around using the hay and the remaining rough leaves to build the nest. RIGHT before they give birth (and after they give birth as well) they pull fur off their bellies to line the nest with and cover the kits with. If a doe doesn’t pull fur to cover the kits I will pull it for her and put it in the nest. This doesn’t hurt them as something in their bodies allows this fur to be easily released for this exact purpose. Although, sometimes I lost the kits along the line if the doe do not pull out her fur herself.

All times does (Mother rabbit) use the nest box as a bathroom in the days before giving birth, to clean her body and more chewing exercise. This is very annoying to see after much care for her to build her nest.

Please note this When a doe is getting close to giving birth I check on her often, I mean More than 5 times a day. Especially first-time mothers. I do it quietly so as not to disturb them. I usually try to plan to be home the day a doe is due (and for sure a first time doe because of some emergency measures) and i go out to the pet quietly every 30 minutes. If she is pulling fur and seems to be in labor i will go every 10 minutes. I do not mess with her at all because she will be very aggressive. I let her do her thing. The reason i check on her so often is to prevent kits on the cage net or board and to avoid been step on by the mother rabbit.

My video is at DLive

(This is me standing infront of the rabbit cage.)