smudgersmith 2 Posted July 15, 2007 Report Share Posted July 15, 2007 Found this morning that my litter of sandy kits (4) were dead and partially eaten by my Jill mum. WHAT COULD HAVE HAPPENED. The Jill and her sister were the only adults in the court. Left them last night with a gutted rabbit, all seemed fine, this is the Jills second litter. F%%cking Gutted, what could I have done wrong. This has never happened before sorry really pissed. Quote Link to post
Kay 3,709 Posted July 15, 2007 Report Share Posted July 15, 2007 Found this morning that my litter of sandy kits (4) were dead and partially eaten by my Jill mum. WHAT COULD HAVE HAPPENED. The Jill and her sister were the only adults in the court. Left them last night with a gutted rabbit, all seemed fine, this is the Jills second litter. F%%cking Gutted, what could I have done wrong. This has never happened before sorry really pissed. Sorry to read this sad news, logically i suppose either jill could have killed the kits, i think they knew something that you didnt hence the behaviour, its a horrible sight finding half eaten ferrets, i found an elderly hob half eaten some yrs ago, i think he was culled because he was sick, ferrets can be fine one min then dead the next, showing no clinical signs of illness. I think its just natures way sad as it is how old were the kits Quote Link to post
skycat 6,173 Posted July 15, 2007 Report Share Posted July 15, 2007 Has anyone else noticed this seems to have been happening quite a lot this year: judging from the several posts on this forum. Weird: Quote Link to post
the fezz 44 Posted July 15, 2007 Report Share Posted July 15, 2007 sorry to hear that mate Quote Link to post
Guest ceredigion bull cross Posted July 15, 2007 Report Share Posted July 15, 2007 does any one think it may be the extreme weather that is affecting our ferrets Quote Link to post
Kay 3,709 Posted July 15, 2007 Report Share Posted July 15, 2007 does any one think it may be the extreme weather that is affecting our ferrets That wouldnt supprise me in the slightest Quote Link to post
dougie_s410k 1 Posted July 15, 2007 Report Share Posted July 15, 2007 how old were the kits? also the part of leaving a rabbit in with the mum and other adult may of caused some sort of stir over the food causing the mum to kill the kits or even the other jill Quote Link to post
jigsaw 11,865 Posted July 15, 2007 Report Share Posted July 15, 2007 I've had 2 litters eaten by the jills in the last 2 weeks.They are housed on their own away from the dogs,no chance of anyone or anything disturbing them and in the 1st litter there were 10 and in the 2cd there were 3,from all 13 kits I have 1 left.i have bred many a litter over the years with no problems but this year I just dont know what happened. Quote Link to post
Guest Frank Posted July 15, 2007 Report Share Posted July 15, 2007 My mates 2 jills had a litter each, one of them had eaten all the kits aswell, something strange going on by the sound of it alright Frank. Quote Link to post
smudgersmith 2 Posted July 15, 2007 Author Report Share Posted July 15, 2007 how old were the kits? also the part of leaving a rabbit in with the mum and other adult may of caused some sort of stir over the food causing the mum to kill the kits or even the other jill Kits were 12 weeks old, eating meat and dry food, active and bloody lovely. I leave a rabbit in every other day over night, remove it in the morning. I have racked my brains to see if I have done anything out of the usual. Really cannot understand this, if it is the hot weather, what does the future bring. Bloody gutted. Quote Link to post
woodchip 2 Posted July 15, 2007 Report Share Posted July 15, 2007 how old were the kits? also the part of leaving a rabbit in with the mum and other adult may of caused some sort of stir over the food causing the mum to kill the kits or even the other jill cant see that dougie mine get a bunnie every other day and ive had no problems Quote Link to post
skycat 6,173 Posted July 15, 2007 Report Share Posted July 15, 2007 (edited) Killing them at 12 weeks old???! NEVER heard of that before: this gets weirder and weirder: strangely enough this is the first year we haven't bred a litter, so I'll never know if it is something to do with the weather. When I first started reading the posts about jills killing kits I assumed it was inexperienced messing about with the kits while they were too young, but this is obviously not the case and its happening to a lot of people who've had ferrets for years. Glad I didn't open my gob when I first saw the posts about it! Edited to ask: were all the jills and kits housed in courts or hutches? And whereabouts in the UK is it happening? Edited July 15, 2007 by skycat Quote Link to post
Guest SJM Posted July 15, 2007 Report Share Posted July 15, 2007 There will be a reason, and probably a good one at that. Mother Nature works in mysterious ways but always in the animals best interests. Ive not bred ferrets for a long time, but I used to get the odd kit go a missing. You'd open the hutch up one morning and there would be 8 instead of 9, no evidence of anything untoward, and you could only assume the kit had died and then been cannibalised? as the other option is rather unpleasant When healthy, well fed ferrets cannibalise their young its a mystery for sure, but I would trust in the process of natural selection, as the kits that did survive always seemed to live long healthy lives. Never seen a whole litter, especially one that age vanish overnight though - tis very odd Quote Link to post
ASME IX 1 Posted July 15, 2007 Report Share Posted July 15, 2007 hi all i bred two litters of ferrets about 13 years ago,both jills had 13 young each..i was over the moon then at about 6 weeks old i found 3 kits dead(2 from one litter and 1 from the other).it looked like they hadnt been dead long,no sign that they had been killed by the mother so i thought they had just died naturaly. every day after that i started to lose kits every single day .so i took them away from the mothers and kept them in a court on there own.that made no difference the young still continued to die,i ended up with five young out of twentysix i did take on of the ferrets to the vets but with no sucsess to why it died ,the vet was also baffled. i just put it down to mother nature,and that life can be cruel at times. regards asme9 Quote Link to post
dougie_s410k 1 Posted July 15, 2007 Report Share Posted July 15, 2007 how old were the kits? also the part of leaving a rabbit in with the mum and other adult may of caused some sort of stir over the food causing the mum to kill the kits or even the other jill cant see that dougie mine get a bunnie every other day and ive had no problems woodchip, the way in which these have been killed at 12 weeks can indicate that something may of happend between the 2 jills in order for this to happen.The fact food was in there at the time could of been part of the reason , this is no fault of anyone but can cause territorial fights when mother and babies are around others.ive seen this happen with other animals and have known it to happen over food and seen it happen over food, it doesnt take much to start them off but they only need to feel insecure and they will indeed kill the young but this is just one scenario....anything could of happend Quote Link to post
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