# Rabbits questions...?



## Nao57 (Sep 19, 2020)

So I'm new to rabbits, but not new to other things like chickens.

Today I bought 2 silver fox rabbits from a local classified ad.

When I picked them up, the lady said something about them being together, I didn't get what she said and I didn't hear her well. I didn't stay long because she was trying to hit me up for extra cash also. (I didn't give in but I was polite.)

When I got home I realized that the boy rabbit is much bigger than the doe. But they are supposed to be both 3 months old.

Does this mean he's not really the same age? How could he be that much bigger than she is?

And I wondered also... if they are really 3 months then at what point do they have to be separated before the doe can get pregnant?

I want to have them breed so I can have meat. But I don't want it to be sporadic and unorganized. I'm also confused also... will they be able to get pregnant before 6 months old? (Google says they can't until 6 months.)

And does this mean they can be together until 6 months?

And what confused me also is that already it appears like the buck is trying to figure out how to mate with the doe. This started even before I had them in the car. (Yet they aren't supposed to be six months yet?) I don't think he was successful yet, but I'm not entirely sure.

Also, I wanted to check what the minimum size of a cage/hutch has to be in order for them to grow healthy?

This doesn't mean I want to have the smallest cage either. Just that I want to have a good idea how big a hutch should be for me to build one, but have enough stalls for more than one rabbit.


Thanks.


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## Bunnylady (Sep 20, 2020)

Rabbits shouldn't be bred until they are about 6 months of age, to be sure they have reached their mature size (with some giant breeds, this may be more like 8 months or so). Rabbits hit puberty at approximately 12 weeks, so most breeders separate the girls from the boys at 10 weeks. A lot of rabbits won't breed until they are older, but many people have been surprised by 4-5 month old does giving birth when they weren't separated from their male littermates soon enough. If your two rabbits have been together for even a few seconds, depending on just how mature they are, your doe may already be pregnant.

As far as size - young rabbits grow fast. Even within a litter, there can be a bit of a size difference, though one would hope it would only be a matter of ounces in rabbits that are 12 weeks or so. If these two rabbits are from different litters, and the doe is just barely 12 weeks while the buck is, like, 15 weeks (and maybe there were a lot of kits in her litter but only a few in his), yes, there could be a fair amount of difference, but it's also quite possible that the buck is a good bit older than the doe. In any case, they need separate housing at this age.

Commercial breeders would keep rabbits of this size in cages that were about 24" x 30" x 18" high, with maybe a 30" x 36" x 18" for a doe with a litter. Some people, especially pet bunny people, would consider that small. What I tell people is that's the minimum size; a cage can't be too big for the rabbit, but it can be too big for _you_ if you need to get hold of the rabbit for some reason and you simply can't reach it.


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## Nao57 (Sep 20, 2020)

Bunnylady said:


> Rabbits shouldn't be bred until they are about 6 months of age, to be sure they have reached their mature size (with some giant breeds, this may be more like 8 months or so). Rabbits hit puberty at approximately 12 weeks, so most breeders separate the girls from the boys at 10 weeks. A lot of rabbits won't breed until they are older, but many people have been surprised by 4-5 month old does giving birth when they weren't separated from their male littermates soon enough. If your two rabbits have been together for even a few seconds, depending on just how mature they are, your doe may already be pregnant.
> 
> As far as size - young rabbits grow fast. Even within a litter, there can be a bit of a size difference, though one would hope it would only be a matter of ounces in rabbits that are 12 weeks or so. If these two rabbits are from different litters, and the doe is just barely 12 weeks while the buck is, like, 15 weeks (and maybe there were a lot of kits in her litter but only a few in his), yes, there could be a fair amount of difference, but it's also quite possible that the buck is a good bit older than the doe. In any case, they need separate housing at this age.
> 
> Commercial breeders would keep rabbits of this size in cages that were about 24" x 30" x 18" high, with maybe a 30" x 36" x 18" for a doe with a litter. Some people, especially pet bunny people, would consider that small. What I tell people is that's the minimum size; a cage can't be too big for the rabbit, but it can be too big for _you_ if you need to get hold of the rabbit for some reason and you simply can't reach it.



Wow. Thanks so much. And also looking forward to making new friends here. 

Although I probably never even had a chance for this to go right. The one I bought the two rabbits from had them together for about an hour or more before I even got there. So I'm guessing she is pregnant.

Does that mean she and the kits will be all screwed up then because she's a bit young and smaller than she would be? 

Thanks a bunch again. 

I think its really fun to learn about sustainable living.

The idea that you can grow rabbits off grass and have almost (but not quite) free food is very interesting to me. And my little niece and nephew both have been greatly enhanced in the mind and spirit by seeing backyard educational agriculture. 

This makes all of this quite fun.


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## Nao57 (Sep 20, 2020)

Since the person I got these from didn't separate them, and had the doe with the buck for awhile even before I got there....

Does this mean I should just start all over with a different doe?

An educational video I was looking at was saying if the doe gets pregnant really young, it will kill the litter sizes with her. (Which means MUCH less meat. :S  ) 

Kind of looks like I'm screwed now.


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## Jennbramlett (Sep 22, 2020)

Nao57 said:


> So I'm new to rabbits, but not new to other things like chickens.
> 
> Today I bought 2 silver fox rabbits from a local classified ad.
> 
> ...


Watch out. If not separated by the time she gives birth, she will have 2 litters.
Rabbits can give birth and  while still pregnant with a 2nd litter!


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## Larsen Poultry Ranch (Sep 23, 2020)

I would wait at least 35 days before deciding to give up on your doe as a lost cause. Pregnancy usually goes between 28-35 days from date of breeding. Since you don't know if the doe is pregnant, you need to count out at least 35 days after the date you separate them and treat her as if she could be pregnant that whole time. 

If she doesn't give birth after 35-40 days, she wasn't pregnant or has absorbed the pregnancy. If she gives birth, then you hopefully have healthy baby bunnies. First time moms aren't always the best, even when they are the right age. You will probably lose some, it happens to everyone and the only thing you can do is analyze why they didn't make it and try to prevent that issue in future litters. I have a 3 strike rule, because sometimes it's not the doe's fault the litter is small or doesn't make it. If she's a bad mom or fails 3 times, then I get rid of her and get a different doe.

A lot of folks breed 2 or more does to have similar due dates, so if they can foster babies between the does if needed. I don't know how much meat you are looking to raise, but you might benefit from having a second doe in this regard. It's really hard to bottle feed baby rabbits and actually have them live.


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## messybun (Sep 23, 2020)

Nao57 said:


> So I'm new to rabbits, but not new to other things like chickens.
> 
> Today I bought 2 silver fox rabbits from a local classified ad.
> 
> ...


I got a rabbit who was three months old and the next morning she had eight living babies... Google lies lol. Definitely separate them right away! If she start to pull hair off of her stomach give her a nesting box. By the way, rabbits do fight and will try to kill each other when left together and a male will eat the babies. It is a VERY rare thing to have a bonded pair and even rarer that you can keep them together at birthing time. About mating, if he was successful the males usually scream and fall over backwards. Since it seems like you are new to buns here are some myths that I started with and wish I’d know better lol. Any male and female will mate, they have no problem with incest and it doesn’t matter who says they do...because they don’t. Rabbits are not always loving fluffy Easter bunny creatures, I love them, but you will run across a little brat every now and then. Rabbits cannot live on wire alone and NEED a resting pad for their feet. Rabbits do not like heat, but they thrive in the cold. It’s true you shouldn’t mix a blue eyed and a red eyed white rabbit because you will find genetic problems. Sometimes rabbits hump each other to show dominance and fight, watch out because they can bite each other. Some rabbits like hay, but they can survive on only good pellets, I’ve had several who refused to eat hay and they were beautiful and healthy without it. All in all, welcome to rabbits and I hope you love them!


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## Nao57 (Sep 23, 2020)

Larsen Poultry Ranch said:


> I would wait at least 35 days before deciding to give up on your doe as a lost cause. Pregnancy usually goes between 28-35 days from date of breeding. Since you don't know if the doe is pregnant, you need to count out at least 35 days after the date you separate them and treat her as if she could be pregnant that whole time.
> 
> If she doesn't give birth after 35-40 days, she wasn't pregnant or has absorbed the pregnancy. If she gives birth, then you hopefully have healthy baby bunnies. First time moms aren't always the best, even when they are the right age. You will probably lose some, it happens to everyone and the only thing you can do is analyze why they didn't make it and try to prevent that issue in future litters. I have a 3 strike rule, because sometimes it's not the doe's fault the litter is small or doesn't make it. If she's a bad mom or fails 3 times, then I get rid of her and get a different doe.
> 
> A lot of folks breed 2 or more does to have similar due dates, so if they can foster babies between the does if needed. I don't know how much meat you are looking to raise, but you might benefit from having a second doe in this regard. It's really hard to bottle feed baby rabbits and actually have them live.



Thank you very much! 

I like the idea of a tracking system like you are doing to watch for which will be good moms. 

Quick question regarding your comment, do you also give a strike if the litter sizes are too small? (I guess technically the moms could pass a small litter size gene to her offspring right? So I get why someone could do that and have good intentions.)


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## Nao57 (Sep 23, 2020)

messybun said:


> I got a rabbit who was three months old and the next morning she had eight living babies... Google lies lol. Definitely separate them right away! If she start to pull hair off of her stomach give her a nesting box. By the way, rabbits do fight and will try to kill each other when left together and a male will eat the babies. It is a VERY rare thing to have a bonded pair and even rarer that you can keep them together at birthing time. About mating, if he was successful the males usually scream and fall over backwards. Since it seems like you are new to buns here are some myths that I started with and wish I’d know better lol. Any male and female will mate, they have no problem with incest and it doesn’t matter who says they do...because they don’t. Rabbits are not always loving fluffy Easter bunny creatures, I love them, but you will run across a little brat every now and then. Rabbits cannot live on wire alone and NEED a resting pad for their feet. Rabbits do not like heat, but they thrive in the cold. It’s true you shouldn’t mix a blue eyed and a red eyed white rabbit because you will find genetic problems. Sometimes rabbits hump each other to show dominance and fight, watch out because they can bite each other. Some rabbits like hay, but they can survive on only good pellets, I’ve had several who refused to eat hay and they were beautiful and healthy without it. All in all, welcome to rabbits and I hope you love them!



I'll watch for this behavior. Thank you.

Will brat behavior be passed to offspring if you don't cull them?

I never would have known about that eye color mixing. :O wow.

Thanks!

Already I was like 'wow, their fur is so silky and soft', that was the first thing I noticed bringing them home.

How do you keep them from tipping their water bowl over?


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## Larsen Poultry Ranch (Sep 23, 2020)

Nao57 said:


> Thank you very much!
> 
> I like the idea of a tracking system like you are doing to watch for which will be good moms.
> 
> Quick question regarding your comment, do you also give a strike if the litter sizes are too small? (I guess technically the moms could pass a small litter size gene to her offspring right? So I get why someone could do that and have good intentions.)


I recommend you create a journal or spreadsheet for each doe you have, in order to track all the info you swear you'll be able to remember without writing it down. You won't remember. Seriously. Write down: breeding date, which male bred to, kindle date, # born, # alive, # doa, # alive to weaning, date weaned, weights of kits at various ages. There's probably more I'm forgetting. But, you want some sort of record so you have hard #s to compare. 

I kept three daughters from my first pair I bred. I used the same buck on all three. The first doe had 7 kits, 2 died before weaning. The second doe had 4 kits and 2 were doa, the others survived to weaning. The third doe had 7 kits and all survived to weaning. I will be breeding them all again once the weather cools down. The second doe has 1.5 strikes against her in my book, the .5 for the small litter and the 1 for aggression. None of my other rabbits have attempted to bite me, she has. I don't need to deal with a mean rabbit. The small litter I can argue was because it was her first or she wasn't at the right time in her cycle. Losing kits is normal for a first time mom, it happened with all my does except that third doe, so I don't count it as a strike against her. If it's after the second litter I would count it as a strike if it was her fault: she wasn't feeding them or stepped on them. I have lost litters due to the heat and that's not the mom's fault. If the second doe has a small litter again, or continues to be aggressive I will cull from my herd. 

Come up with some guidelines or goals for your rabbitry and write them down. Then figure out how to work toward those goals. After a few months or a few litters, go over the numbers and see if there are changes you need to make to your rabbitry to move toward the goals, and also evaluate if the goals are still reasonable.


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## messybun (Sep 23, 2020)

Nao57 said:


> I'll watch for this behavior. Thank you.
> 
> Will brat behavior be passed to offspring if you don't cull them?
> 
> ...


Brat genes don’t seem to be passed down, but I hate dealing with mean rabbits. I’ve used water bottles for most of my rabbits, the exception was a blind rabbit who couldn’t find his spout. We had homemade pottery crocks, they weigh a good amount and had a large enough base that they couldn’t flip food or water.
Silver foxes are super soft!
Oh, and having offspring early doesn’t always effect litter sizes later in life. And, if she does happen to be preggers and isn’t a good mom you can force her to nurse and top the babies off with goat milk. My best mom is the one I mentioned, she had to be taught to nurse her babies but she turned out to be a good mom after she got the hang of it. Be patient with your rabbits, there is a lot to learn but it will become second nature eventually.


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## Nao57 (Sep 23, 2020)

Larsen Poultry Ranch said:


> I recommend you create a journal or spreadsheet for each doe you have, in order to track all the info you swear you'll be able to remember without writing it down. You won't remember. Seriously. Write down: breeding date, which male bred to, kindle date, # born, # alive, # doa, # alive to weaning, date weaned, weights of kits at various ages. There's probably more I'm forgetting. But, you want some sort of record so you have hard #s to compare.
> 
> I kept three daughters from my first pair I bred. I used the same buck on all three. The first doe had 7 kits, 2 died before weaning. The second doe had 4 kits and 2 were doa, the others survived to weaning. The third doe had 7 kits and all survived to weaning. I will be breeding them all again once the weather cools down. The second doe has 1.5 strikes against her in my book, the .5 for the small litter and the 1 for aggression. None of my other rabbits have attempted to bite me, she has. I don't need to deal with a mean rabbit. The small litter I can argue was because it was her first or she wasn't at the right time in her cycle. Losing kits is normal for a first time mom, it happened with all my does except that third doe, so I don't count it as a strike against her. If it's after the second litter I would count it as a strike if it was her fault: she wasn't feeding them or stepped on them. I have lost litters due to the heat and that's not the mom's fault. If the second doe has a small litter again, or continues to be aggressive I will cull from my herd.
> 
> Come up with some guidelines or goals for your rabbitry and write them down. Then figure out how to work toward those goals. After a few months or a few litters, go over the numbers and see if there are changes you need to make to your rabbitry to move toward the goals, and also evaluate if the goals are still reasonable.


Thank you very much.

Its neat to learn from you and the others.


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## Bunnylady (Sep 23, 2020)

Nao57 said:


> I never would have known about that eye color mixing. :O wow.



I fear this may be one of those bits of internet misinformation; I would love to know the source, since I've been in rabbits for over 30 years and I've never heard it before, nor can I find a knowledgeable source that mentions it. The gene that causes BEW is located in a completely different place from the one that causes REW. There are issues associated with each color [for example, the Vienna gene (BEW) has been linked to a seizure disorder], but they are independent of the issues in the other. There is also a seizure disorder associated with Lionhead rabbits, that doesn't seem to be linked to any color or bloodline. There's also a digestive disorder associated with the Broken pattern, too, but it has nothing to do with whatever other color genes a rabbit has.



Nao57 said:


> Will brat behavior be passed to offspring if you don't cull them?




It can be. The fact that a certain amount of personality is inheritable has been demonstrated in many species, and rabbits are no exception. There's no guarantee that_ all_ of the offspring of two friendly bunnies will be equally friendly, but people who select for good personalities in their breeding stock hardly ever produce a truly vicious rabbit. If you've never seen such a thing, I have, and I have to wonder if the writers of "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" might have run into one as well.


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## Niele da Kine (Sep 25, 2020)

Temperament matters and it breeds true.  If  you have a mean rabbit, don't breed it.

There's a pedigree program out there called 'Kintracks'.  It's a free download and you can load several hundred animals into it before you need to pay for the program so you have a really long testing time to see if you like it.  If you decide to get the code to unlock the full program, it's somewhere around $20 Australian which is less in US $ and probably even less in  € .  

Even if the rabbits you got aren't pedigreed now, their offspring several generations down the line can be.  Other than making pedigrees, the Kintracks program lets you add pictures of each rabbit, tracks how inbred they'd be with certain matings, lets you make notes, track weights, expenses, income,   All kinds of data.

I made an animal entry named for the rabbitry and when there's notes that affect the entire herd, something such as building a new hutch, etc., then I put it under that 'animal's' name so I'll have notes that covers the whole herd.

As for your bunnies now, keep them separated and assume she's pregnant.  At day 28, give her a nest box.  Even if it's just a cardboard box, and some nesting material (hay, dried grasses, etc.) see if she builds a nest in it.  If she does, then she may be pregnant.  She should have them around day 32.

As for cage size, one of mine is 2.5 feet deep by twelve feet long.  There's doors all along the front so they can be opened to get the bunnies inside.  That's the communal doe hutch, there's another 2.5' x 12' hutch that's segmented down into three spaces and that's where the bucks are.  Both these big hutches are two stories and they're modular so when a part wears out it can be replaced without having to replace the whole thing.







But, everyone's bunny hutch will be different, it all depends on what type of bunnies you have and why you have them.  Bunnies are pretty adaptable.


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## Nao57 (Nov 4, 2020)

So  a new question came up, so I'll post it here.

I'm a bit confused about pregnancy ages and allowances. 

People say don't get them pregnant until 5 months old or 6 months old on the does. 

So what I want to clarify is,...does that matter if its on the front end or the back end? For example, A doe could be 5 months old, get pregnant, and then have the litter when she's about 6 months old. OR....she could be 6 months old and then get pregnant with the litter coming out on the 6 month mark? 

Does this kind of small detail stuff matter? And the front end and back end stuff with them being at the age when the litter comes out is that wrong, or bad, or just fine?


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## Larsen Poultry Ranch (Nov 5, 2020)

Nao57 said:


> So  a new question came up, so I'll post it here.
> 
> I'm a bit confused about pregnancy ages and allowances.
> 
> ...


I think it's going to depend on the doe. The age restriction/recommendation is so the doe doesn't get pregnant while she's still growing herself. If she gets pregnant too young, there's a chance she's going to not reach her full growth, and also a chance it will impact the current litter and future litters.


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