BABY BUNNIES! :) A pic and questions lol

[MandiRock]

I have some super adorable baby bunnies My Mini Rex bred with a Mini Lop and we got 7 adorable kits. They're 10 days old now, and they just opened their eyes. First question is, when should I remove the nest box? Most of what I saw online said 2-3 weeks but they just opened their eyes today, and they've decided not to use it anymore. They're curious little jokers, going all around the cage. I just went out to check on them a minute ago, and they were sleeping between the box and the wall. I put them back inside (third time today), but I'm sure they'll hop back out tomorrow. So should I just take it out? Mama even ate the hay out of it lol

Next question is, at what age can they be sexed? I know how to tell the difference, but I'm not sure exactly at what age the difference can be told. The youngest I've ever had experience with was about 4 weeks.

AND NOW, a picture! This is from their one week mark. I don't have much experience with coat color so I'm putting my guess under their pic, and if you think I'm wrong, impart your rabbit wisdom on me


Group shot sleeping in their basket lol

The mom is broken blue and the dad is broken orange. So I think up at the top I've got a tort, then 3 broken blues (one obviously darker than the others, maybe broken black), an orange, a chocolate and a chestnut


Also, since I'm not 100% sure that my girl is pure Mini Rex, is there any chance that some of the kits could have lop ears? I know that it's recessive and the dad is most likely a lop mix, but I'm really not sure about the mom. The girl that I got her from told me she was pure but she had several breeds so what do I know? lol

 

[PoultryPower]

So cute!

I like to leave my nest boxes in till my rabbits are 4-5 weeks old. The only reason I take the boxes out is because at this age, I'm moving them into their other cage and I want them to have room to run and jump. Until then, I leave it in with them because they love to sit on top of it. At 10 days old, they still should be going back into the box to warm up and sleep (at least all of mine do). Mine like to sleep in the nest box till about 4 weeks. Are you sure they can get back into the box? At this age, they're pretty uncoordinated and might have a hard time jumping back into the box. You might need to make a ramp or something for them. My doe doesn't stay with the kits, so I put a blanket on the cage floor and make a step up into the nest box with a feed bowl underneath the blanket. The blanket gives them enough traction that they can easily crawl back into the box. The blanket also helps to keep kits warm if they fall out of the nest box at a young age. Here's a video that shows the blanket and step if your interested:

. If momma is eating all the hay, I would keep refilling the box and give momma some extra to chew on.

As far as sexing them, most do it at 3 weeks. It's pretty easy to tell by then.

It is possible for some to have floppy ears, but from what I've seen and read, most often the mixes have upright ears.

 

[Bunnylady]

I'm thinking that your three brokens are a broken black, a broken opal, and a broken blue.

The Rex coat is distinctive; it is barely half an inch long and very dense. It makes almost no difference whether you rub from head to tail or the other way, because the hair stands pretty much on end all the time. The Rex coat is a recessive trait, so if your doe has a Rex coat, she had to get the gene from both of her parents. If she's a mix, then both of her parents had to be at least part Rex for her to have gotten the Rex coat.

Lop ears aren't precisely an inheritable trait - they are the result of a combination of somewhat lax supportive tissue in the base of the ear, and a wide skull that puts the ears far away from each other. Lop crosses often don't get a wide enough skull to get the ears hanging perpendicular, even if the ears aren't sturdy enough to hold them erect. They often have some ear control, and do a sort of "ear semaphore" of one up, one down, or ears that wobble around but don't go down (kind of like Weebles

). They may wind up with ears that go sideways rather than down - what some people call "helicopter ears."

Gorgeous litter, btw!

 

[Dutchgirl]

Once, when a litter of mine didn't want to sleep in their nest box anymore, but they still were fairly young, we filled a small, plastic shoebox with bedding material and gave it to them. It was more like a bed than a burrow, and they could hop in and out easily.

For both your questions, though, I'd say 3 weeks. If the bunnies really aren't using the box, and you have them in a warm place, you could probably take it away at 2 weeks.
Sexing is easy at 3 weeks.