Remember me mentioning the rabbit I just picked up might be pregnant in my first post? Well she was and now we have a very good-sized litter of baby bunny rabbits. So, I was thinking how about I tell you some baby facts about other pets we own? And our beautiful baby ferrets of course.
Baby rabbits, often called kittens though they have other names too, are born after about 30 days gestation (pregnancy). They are born blind, deaf and fur less, though they do have whiskers (aww) and you can see markings so can guess at colours. Their fur and teeth start growing immediately, after a few days you can see their little teeth in. Rabbits are notorious for being miss sexed leading to accidental litters, but some breeders can sex them quite well at birth, all in practice I suppose. Rabbits don’t actually mind if their nests are touched (though they can be territorial) so a lot of breeders “shelf” litters, this is where the nest is only in the cage for feeding time until the babies are more sturdy and adventurous, allowing the breeder to keep the babies nice and safe while mum goes about her usual business. We’ve decided to do this because the babies were born in a cold snap and mum shares a cage with her older daughter. As you might have guessed rabbit mums don’t keep the babies warm, they can smother or crush babies if they spend too much time in the nest. Around a week and a half, they open their eyes and soon after are hopping in and out the nest. As they grow they start not needing the nest at all and around 4/5 weeks start weaning which should be finished by 8 weeks.
We used to breed lunkarya guinea pigs but gave it up after we moved and now only have a few pets. Guinea pigs are unusual as far as babies go. A guinea pig reaches puberty at 3 weeks old! That’s earlier than some are fully weaned! Fortunately, it’s rare for them to be interested at this age. They are pregnant for 10 weeks and then out they come fully furred, active, sometimes eating solids, miniature adults! The only difference is hair texture in coated breeds. The pups can be sexed at birth, but it is always wise to check again in a few weeks because they can appear one sex but in a few weeks, are clearly the other. Since they are so independent from birth they can be separated from mum as soon as you’re sure they’re on solids. Fortunately, UK laws make sure no mammal can be rehomed legally before 8 weeks because despite being ready to go things do sometimes go wrong in those first two months so and it is best to have a knowledgeable eye on them.
We have been keeping quails and chickens on and off since I was 4 years old, so they deserve a mention. Chickens are developmentally the same as quail except they take a bit more time because quail are so much smaller. Poultry hatch from eggs which need to be incubated by a broody hen or an incubator, quail are terrible mums, so they require an electronic incubator to come into the world. After 3 weeks of patient tending you should have yourself a little clutch of tiny, fluffy chicks. These chicks require a heat source to keep them warm for the first 4 weeks, the temperature slowly being dropped to room temperature over this period. They start eating chick crumb and drinking at about 24hrs old and can be introduced to other kinds of food at 2 weeks old. By the time they are off the heat source they will have adult plumage and will just require time to flesh out into fully grow adults.
Over my lifetime we’ve kept a lot of other types of birds, all of which are altricial (are dependent on parents to live) and though my pigeons are currently staying with someone else their development is so much different to poultry I didn’t want to leave them out. The (usually) pair of squabs (baby pigeons) take about 18 days to grow and then another day to break their way out of the shell. Once out they’re, frankly, ugly blind things with no real feathers and gangly. Mum and dad need to keep them warm and fed with pigeon milk, essentially sick from the crop, which changes to more grain and less puree as they grow. After a few days they become really fat, bald, demanding chicks and start trying to leave the nest. They’re “mature” by 4 weeks and flying but they still spend all their time hounding daddy for food for another 10 days or so. After this they start eating for themselves. At about 8 months old they start looking for a mate of their own.
Dogs and cats are remarkably similar as far as growing up goes, mating wise though they are chalk and cheese, cats being able to breed at any time if they are not already pregnant, and dogs only at certain times of year. Although dogs are usually pregnant for 10 weeks small breeds are often only pregnant for 9 weeks, the same as a cat. The babies are born blind, deaf and fully furred. They’re also completely dependent on mum (not dad) for food, warmth and being able to go to the toilet. They can only crawl towards milk, suck and kneed the teats, and make cute little squeaks. Both puppies and kittens start to open their eyes after 10-14 days their ears opening shortly after. Over the next week the babies start to toddle and look for the bathroom. They often also start to wean over this period as their milk teeth start to come in. Both kittens and puppies also have blueish eyes when they open, and they will chance to their adult colour over the next few weeks, kittens sometimes taking a few months to completely change. By 8 weeks old they’re active, eating by themselves and kittens will be using a tray, pups might still need a bit of work on house training though. Over the period between weaning and rehoming both animals need vital time with mum and siblings, and humans to learn manners and how to be a good, confident pet.
Our beautiful ferrets are most like cats of all the animals we’ve looked at already but there are still lots of differences. Jills can only become pregnant at certain times of the year and then spend 6 weeks, the last week or so preparing a nest. Ferrets do not always like their nest touched, interfering in their nest without the jill being comfortable with it can cause them to kill the kits and destroy the nest. They’re born blind, deaf, usually with white baby fur, though angoras bald and strong colours sometimes show through the skin at birth (my blacks and one of my chocolates were like this), you can also tell albinos due to them appearing to have no eyes behind the closed lids. At a week-old colours and markings become visible and depending on how big they are they can start leaving the nest up to 3 weeks, driving mum mad as she tries to keep them in there, bringing food. Their teeth also erupt at about 3 weeks and they start moving blind from the nest to the litter tray, eating everything on route. Until then mum cleans them to stimulate toileting and cleans up accidents as they begin to be able to themselves. On average most ferrets don’t open their eyes until 4.5 weeks (I did have one who opened one at 2 weeks, little weirdo) but their ears are open first and they blindly turn to look at you. Since they’ve started all the basics before their eyes open, eating, litter tray, the time between 5 weeks and rehoming is filled with becoming confident on their feet and learning social cues and how to interact with humans, just like puppies and kittens.
Our only other pet at the moment is my snake, Piper, but frankly I know almost nothing about snake breeding, so I won’t go there. All I know is she’s awesome lol
That’s all for now, until next time!