How common is double pregnancy?

[natem]

I bred my doe a week ago. Today, she somehow escaped and got with a buck. Lets say she was already pregnant and also lifted for the buck today, what are the chances she got double pregnant? I heard some people say this is very rare to happen, but others say it is common. Help?

 

[Bunnylady]

I don't know just how common it is; all I can tell you is my experience. I sometimes put 1 buck and 2 - 4 does together in one large cage in a sort of "colony" arrangement. I've done this many times with many different rabbits. I usually take does out as I notice them looking/acting pregnant; I may remove the buck if he seems too aggressive. I have lost count of the number of "colonies" I have set up over the years, but in almost 30 years of breeding rabbits, I have never had a doe have a litter one day, and give birth to even a single baby days later. I have never had a doe give birth to babies that were mature, and others that looked premature, either.

 

[DianeS]

I had a kindling that was mostly full term normal kits that also had three premature kits in it. I assume it was a double breeding like you described. Of course the three premature ones did not survive, they were already deceased when I saw the litter the first time.

It happens a lot to some people and never to others, and everyone else is in the middle with "sometimes". Unfortunately, There isn't anything you can do to change what already happened, and there's nothing you can do to encourage the survival of kits that were conceived second. So it's kind of a moot point. Treat the mom normal, as if she got pregnant the first time and only the first time. Treat the kits normally when they arrive. And if kits don't arrive on the expected day, keep the nestbox in and reschedule everything for in case she got pregnant the second time and only the second time.

To encourage you, I'll point out that if she got pregnant in both uterine horns with the first breeding, then there would be nothing available to be fertilized by the second buck.

 

[wolfsnaps]

I can not address how common it is, but it happened to me.

I do not yet have a breeding program but I have wanted to breed rabbits for a while now, just haven't gotten around to it.

My husband's friend told him that a rabbit wandered into his barn and had 3 kits. Then, a week or so later, she had more. I had no idea this could happen and I thought he was mistaken but sure enough, I researched this and it CAN happen. All the babies were born alive and healthy. I got the first litter now and am awaiting the second litter to be old enough to leave the mother and come here. I plan on raising them up to butcher and, depending on how large they get, I may keep one for breeding purposes for colors.


I was told she had 14 babies the second litter. Does that sound like a lot to you? Maybe I should use her as a breeding doe? If they give her to me...

 

[Bunnylady]

I can not address how common it is, but it happened to me.

I do not yet have a breeding program but I have wanted to breed rabbits for a while now, just haven't gotten around to it.

My husband's friend told him that a rabbit wandered into his barn and had 3 kits. Then, a week or so later, she had more. I had no idea this could happen and I thought he was mistaken but sure enough, I researched this and it CAN happen. All the babies were born alive and healthy. I got the first litter now and am awaiting the second litter to be old enough to leave the mother and come here. I plan on raising them up to butcher and, depending on how large they get, I may keep one for breeding purposes for colors.


I was told she had 14 babies the second litter. Does that sound like a lot to you? Maybe I should use her as a breeding doe? If they give her to me...

14 isn't just a big litter, it gets close to being a huge litter (the Guiness' book of World Records lists a very rare 24 as the most live births ever). It's so many, I have a hard time believing a doe could produce that many from just one horn of her uterus (though obviously, the 2 record setting does had to have at least 12 to a side). I'm thinking that it is more likely that this doe did another one out of the rabbits' bag of reproductive tricks - delayed implantation. After I made that post where I said I had never had it happen, it occurred to me that I had one Jersey Wooly doe, about 25 years ago, that did have 3 babies one day, and 3 more babies a few days later - mea culpa. The thing is, though, that I know that doe was only bred one time, on one day only - I wasn't doing colonies at that time, and she wasn't caged next to a buck. It is possible for a doe's eggs to get fertilized, but the resulting embryos don't implant and grow for some time.