Rabbit Babies death

[vancheese]

Bah, My Doe which had a litter of 9 rabbits has had two deaths - Both around the 4 weeks. I found the rabbits squashed. One was the runt, the other was quite healthy. Any thoughts of what might be causing this?

[doofaloofa]

did you notice anything amis the day before?

Any diahorea or bloating?

Glazed eyes?

Innactivity, loss of appetite?

[trinder]

As to your question on using grandfather to granddaughter. As stated by a previous poster it is usually only done to maximise the gene probability.
Those who support it call it line breeding. Those who object (or are disrespectful) call it inbreeding.
an example :-
Two unrelated adults mate, the offspring have 50-50 of each parents genes. If this mating produced one fabulous champion offspring within that litter, that is just random and the chances of "him" (for the purpose of this example) siring champions are simply random. if however the line has been selectively bred not to just "hope" for one champion but to promote a particular "trait or quality" that will ultimately improve the breed (in the breeders opinion) then that is a the reason for line breeding. I hasten to add that going as close as grandfather gives a fairly acceptable gene pool but the choice of mate for the offspring would need careful considered planning. Including a study of the pedigree of the selected mate to ensure that "it's" gene pool is not too close.

NB I have no axe to grind here. I simply understand the stuff.

[vancheese]

did you notice anything amis the day before?

Any diahorea or bloating?

Glazed eyes?

Innactivity, loss of appetite?

Only a little inactivity they seems fine :S

[doofaloofa]

I'm currently battleing some nasty disease that has curently killed 20% of the cuurent crop of babies (5/25) and another 2 look like they are on the way out

AFAIK it was bought in by a rabbit I bought that died a few days later, and since then I have had a terrible time loosing between 100% and 20% of babies and several adults

The current flush seems to be affecting mainly one litter, so I'm guesssing there is some genetic aspect to it

Interwebbing has resuled in lots of possibilities as to the cause