Rabbit Breeding

Details

Published: Friday, 04 October 2013 12:35

Written by David DeCiero

In August, my rabbits had reached the right age for breeding.  After 4 months of watching them grow from small bunnies to bigger bunnies, it was time.  I decided to do this at the beginning of September for an early October birth.  This would be before the real cold weather started, and after all the heat of summer had passed.  I had only read about the process (with rabbits of course) before, so I was going into this somewhat blind.  I knew to put the doe in the buck’s cage, so once I did that, all I saw was fur flying.  They did not get along.  The buck (Frank) was trying to get the job done, but the doe (Frannie) wanted no part of it.  They were running around their cage like crazy.  Frank tried to pin her down, but she is a little bigger than him.  Finally, Frank got on top and did his business.  It was literally 3 seconds before he froze and fell over.  I wasn’t sure that he had gotten the job done since it surely had to have taken longer than that.  So, I removed Frannie from Frank’s cage and waited 1 hour.  After the hour, I returned and placed Frannie back in Frank’s cage.  The fur flew again.  However, Frank had learned something from his last encounter and quickly got around to business.  Once again, it was 3 seconds, a freeze, and then collapse.  I felt confident that since had now happened two times that it must be the normal course.  So, I removed Frannie and placed her in her own cage.  I’m still waiting to see if it took.  I decided against checking her half way through as most people can’t do it reliably anyway.  I figure if nothing comes out in a month, then I can start over.  At least this time I’ll know what to watch for.