Evaluating Kits in the Nestbox

Is it possible? Sure, now you can't pose them up and really know what kind of type they'll have but there are clues as to what will follow as they grow. When I evaluate a kit in the nestbox, I look at 3 things: body size, ear length, and hocks.

Body size is very obvious and its best to evaluate sizes around the 2nd week of life. All of the kits in the below pictures are 12 days old. Its obvious which is the dwarf and which is the false dwarf. I like to keep the dwarfs back because I like a smaller typier animal.


Oh yes, big difference...



Now ears, I am really staying away from long eared babies this year and to improve quickly, its an easy decision on who to keep based on ear length, especially at this age. I'm going to use the penny method...keep in mind these are 12 day old babies so at this age, I put a penny in between their ears and ears that extend beyond the penny, it's likely they will have long ears.

Too long:


Close!


Perfect!!


Too Long.


Now hocks, this isn't always accurate because wiggly babies tend to move their legs every which way but you can tell who has a definite 'V' and who has legs that are set wide apart.



I think its so much fun to evaluate babies! It looks like in this litter there are 2 nice little bucks and one doe that may be staying too...next eval. is at 6 weeks!