You can give a rabbit a nest box but you can't make her use it.

Years ago I had a doe that I thought didn't like where I put her nest box. She was a first time mom so I made an educated guess where she wanted it. Usually not in the corner they've picked as the restroom. Paris took ALL the shavings out and put them in the other corner where they promptly fell through the wire floor to the barn floor. Ok, not a big deal. I refilled the box and put it in the OTHER corner. Apparently that was wrong too and Paris repeated her previous actions. We did this a couple times with the same results.

Ok. Fine! Two boxes! One in each corner. Now I've got her, surely she'll pick one of them right? Nope, Paris squeezed her fat 4 pound self behind those two boxes to push them forward and then she dumped all the shavings behind and through the wire, again. I was less then amused. So, put everything back, bought a new bale of shavings, refilled the boxes, put clothes pins in and pined/wedge those boxes in. I'm a genius! I outsmarted a rabbit. I won.

Wrong.

Damn thing pulled all the shavings out of both boxes and crammed it all in the three inch gap between the boxes, more shavings on the floor wasted. I was ready to rip my hair out. I was excited and anxious for this litter. Paris had done well on the show tables and I bred her to my best buck, Attila. This wasn't ok! I could lose the whole litter in a matter of minutes in the dead of winter. My mother thought it was hysterical how this four pound rabbit was running my life and driving me crazy.

In the end she picked a box and successfully had her maiden litter. She was never anything other then a great mom and we never had this problem again.

Flash forward to last week.

This is what a new, just put in, next box usually looks like.

This is Belle (Disney name themed season). I found out that the step kids want to know the name of every animal I have. I name my rabbits usually on a theme but I usually wait for them to speak to me what their name should be. Sometimes they don't speak to me, but I learned that if I don't name them then we end up with animals named after what they are instead of a real name (e.g. Duck Duck the rescued duck, I know but once it happened it stuck and I couldn't unstick it no matter how hard I tried) Anyways, Belle is not a first time mom, this will be her second litter. Her last litter she did great! Note I put her box where I put it last time.

 This is what she did, she picked up (in her mouth) every last speck of shavings and put them here. In front of the box. I would just move her box, but the darker smidge you see in the top left of this picture is her feeder, if I moved the box it would block access to it. I shrugged and refilled her box. I'm an adult now and have a full time job, I do not have time for these kinds of shenanigans. Belle spent all night picking up all the shavings and putting it back the way she had it. This is the part where I throw my hands up and say whatever, fine be that way. It is summer, the temp right now is 90 degrees in the shade at 6 in the evening. At night the temperature doesn't drop too low, however babies could still freeze after a few hours outside the box. I check on my rabbits often when babies are due or when its hot. Chances are good I'd catch this litter before I lost them.

Raising rabbits taught me many things, most important: No matter what you do sometimes animals will do their own thing. You can let it drive you crazy or you can try to make work.

In the mean time while I wait for Belle to have this litter I'm going to check my records and see if she is related to Paris.