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Breeding Information
Questions and Answers concerning Breeding your Rabbits

Words and their meaningsKits - Baby rabbits Kindle/Kindling - To give birth Gestation - Period in which the female rabbit is pregnat

Question; How long are rabbits pregnant for?

Answer; A rabbits gestation period is from 28 - 31 days. It is also possible for a rabbit to go up to 36 days before kindling. When a rabbit does go to 36 days, chances are your doe is not able to kindle for some reason and the kits are normally born dead. If your doe is for sure pregnant and hasn't delivered before day 35, you may want to think about seeking assistance from a Vet or knowledgable breeder.

Question; What should I put in the Nest Box for my doe to kindle in and where do I get a Nest Box?

Answer; You can buy a nest box at your local farm supply store, your local feed store, or you can order one through a Rabbit Equipment Dealer, or you can make one, "(instructions and patterns on building a nestbox on this page)". We put about 2-3" of pine shavings in the bottom and then loosely stuff the remainder of the box with some grass hay. This will allow the doe to make a den to have her babies in. The doe will also pull her own fur from her chest to make the nest warm and soft for her babies to lay in. A doe will usually pull hair prior to kindling, but some does will wait until after she has had her kits.

Question: I want to breed my rabbit, but how do I know that she is old enough or is ready to breed? Answer: The best way in my opinion is to wait until the doe has either reached senior weight for the respective breed or has reached at least 5 months old for your dwarf/smaller breeds, (Netherlands, Dutch, Mini Lops, Mini Rex, etc) and at least 7-8 months for your larger breeds, ( Rex, Satin, New Zealands, Flemish, French Lops, etc.). Once your rabbit has reached the proper age and/or weight, check your does vulva. If the vulva is red or a purple color, then this would be the time to breed, because your doe will be more willing to cooperate at this time. Your doe goes through these cycles every 14-16 days from what I can tell. I call it a heat cycle but thats just me, and it is easier for me to refer to it as that for the sake of explaining it to others.

Questions: My doe just kindled, and all of her kits died. When can I rebreed her?

Answer: If we have a doe that lost her litter right after kindling, then we will usually wait until the next day to rebreed. If we loose a litter within a couple of days of kindling, we will rebreed right away. By rebreeding your doe right away, you will be breeding her back during her most receptive time to concieve and you will not loose valuable breeding time.

Question: My rabbit just had babies and cannabalized them, Why?

Answer: There are a few reasons that this could happen.

1. Your doe may need more fiber in her diet. Try giving your doe some extra hay.

2. There may have been a preditor in your barn that you were not aware of. Look for signs of mice, rats, cats, dogs, oppossums, skunks, snakes, etc. Preditors can make a doe very nervous. She would rather eat her kits than to see them go to a preditor. If you have to, set traps or bait to kill any unwanted preditors.

Question; When my rabbit has her babies, should I be doing anything special or feeding her more or what?

Answer; When your doe kindles, you would want to check on the kits to make sure that all of them are alive and to count them. Most does don't mind you taking a peek. We do not increase the does feed for a couple of days after kindling because we do not want her producing more milk than the kits will drink. The only thing we do after the doe has kindled is to, check the kits daily, making sure that all are fine, alive and eating. You can tell if your kits have eaten because they will have fat round little tummies. Other than doing a daily check, we tend to leave momma and babies alone.

Question; When do I wean the babies?

Answer; Baby rabbits need to stay with their mothers for at least 6 wks. In some breeds, you may even want to leave babies with their mothers for 8 weeks. If you have a large litter, then I would tend to wean 2 babies a day until the entire litter is weaned off. I would start with the biggest babies first. This way it will help the mother to dry her milk up at a better rate. To wean the entire litter may cause the mother to get what they call Mastitis which is an inflammation of the mammary gland

© Copyright Rochelle Cooley 2000

How To Build A Rabbit Nestbox

First Things First

The first thing that you are going to want to do is to gather the things that you will need. Here is a list of what you will need.1. Plywood

2. Hammer

3. Tape Measure

4. Saw

5. Nails (30D Brit nails x 1 1/2" for box sides, top, and back, 3/4" Brad nails to attach the bottom )

6. A Pencil

7. Safety Glasses (please make sure that you wear safety glasses when cutting wood to prevent sawdust from getting into your eyes).

Now What?

Now you would want to mark your pattern on your wood with a pencil. Then cut your pattern out with the saw. I use a skill saw but would prefer to use a table saw if I had one.

For a small size rabbit - 12"L x 9"H x 9"w For a medium size rabbit - 16"L x 11"W x 9 3/4"H

For a large size rabbit - 20"L x 11"W x 11"H (make sure first though that it will fit thru the door on the cage. You can make it slightly wider if it will fit)

Get your Hammer and Nails Ready!

Now comes the fun part, hammering your nails in!

I place one side face down on my work table and then stand up the front and back where they are going to be at and then place the other side on top, then hammer my nails in. For me, this works pretty good. Once I have the front and back peice nailed to the side, then I flip the whole thing over and nail on the other side. Once those are all nailed together I will nail the top and the baby flip bar on. The baby flip bar, as I call it, is just a peice of stipping or molding that is approx 2"W x 1/2" thick. I like putting these on our boxes because it will help knock kits back into the box if they are still trying to nurse when mom tries to jump out of the box.

Once you have all of this done, then it is time to make your bottom. I use a 1/4" peice of pegboard or plywood, whichever I have on hand. I will place the box on my bottom wood and trace the outer edges of the box so that I will have an exact fit. I will then cut the bottom out with the saw and then nail it on.

Now that the box is completed I will take a good look at it to make sure that there are no rough edges anyway. If there is, then I will sand down the rough spots so that no one gets splinters.

Job Well Done! So How Did You Do?

Now that wasn't so bad was it? Now that you know how to make a nestbox you will never have to worry about buying another one ever again.

After we get done making a nestbox, we will mark the box with the does name and ear# on the 'baby flip bar' so that only that rabbit uses that particular box. This will also help in the prevention of passing germs from one doe to another.

How and When should I wean my new baby bunnies?

When should I wean my baby bunnies?

Weaning bunnies may see easy, but is it? To us yes, to the baby bunny, sometimes not.

Baby bunnies have a very delicate system. Weaning them to early can cause stress to the bunny. It can also cause stress to the mother because of having excess milk production and no kits to relieve her of that milk.

I have found the best way for us to wean our bunnies is to do it gradually. This has seemed to cause the less amount of stress on all involved.

First off we will wait till the kits are 6 weeks of age. We then try to wean 1/2 of the litter on 1 day and 1/2 the remaining litter 2 days later and then the rest of the litter 2 days after that. Total litter weaning time, 5 days. This way it slows down the does milk production to prevent engourgement. Example; if a doe has 6 kits, then we will wean 3 kits on the first day. One the 3rd day we will wean 2 more kits and on the 5th day we will wean the last one. Usually we wean the largest and strongest kits from the litter first. By doing this, the smaller kits get a couple extra days with mom for that bit of extra nourishment that can help give that baby a better boost in life.

If you have a meat producing breed, than I would suggest leaving babies in with mom utnil they are at least 8 weeks of age and follow the same wean off pattern as described above.

In Case of Emergency

In some cases, you might have to wean your kits early due to a problem or an emergency. In my opinion, I would first try to find a suitable foster mother for kits under 4 weeks of age.

Just because a baby is eating pellets at approx 3 weeks, doesn't mean that it can be taken away from mom and be on its own. On occassion though, it might have to be. In these cases, where your litter has to be on its own because of circumstances beyond your control, give plenty of extra grass hay for the bunny to eat. I also suggest giving the bunny some tea as described on our Tea and Grain page. The tea will help balance out the ph level in the bunnies gut.

Baby Bunnies

These little guys to the left are so cute and so small. They depend on us for their care and needs. Some of the needs a baby bunny has is to stay with its mother for the proper amount of time.

Do your part and help make sure that bunnies are properly weaned at the right time.

It is also equally important to never sell a bunny that has not been properly weaned or is to young. If you do have a bunny that has been weaned early because of a problem, Never sell that bunny before the age of 6-8 weeks. They don't need the added stress that it could cause.