Stomach Movement *Video*

[AmberLops]

Actually, it is . . . .

One of the weird tricks that rabbits can do is called "delayed implantation." A doe's eggs get fertilized, but don't implant and don't develop, and just float around until conditions get better, or whatever, at which point they do implant, and develop at the normal rate. The longest documented case of delayed implantation is something in the neighborhood of 6 months (source - Rabbit Production) . When I read that, my first thought was, "if we use more than one buck, how can we ever be sure about 'who's the daddy?!'"

We had someone posting here a few years ago, that had a doe that apparently managed to give birth to a few kits once a month for something like 3 months after being bred (we have only the poster's word for this, and while I freely admit it could have been an elaborate leg-pull, keeping it up for 6 months or more seems like an awful lot of effort on the poster's part). Not sure I believe it, just throwing it out there.

Also, if your doe was housed in a cage beside a buck, there is always the possibility of breeding through the wire. I don't know how they do it, but it happens; as someone likes to say, "nature finds a way."

But I have seen aborted fetuses of what I knew were 20 -22 days' gestation. They are thin-skinned, red, clearly and unmistakably fetuses, and simply not developed enough to survive. The earliest "preemies" that I have had survive were about 27 days' gestation, and they were clearly not quite full term as far as development.

Well....I contacted the breeder I got her from because she was making a nest the night I brought her home and the breeder had sold her last male over a month before I got the doe...she said there was absolutely no chance.
And when I went to pick out my does I asked if she had any bucks for sale and she had none...
So I don't know but that would make months of keeping those babies inside! It's a very interesting thought!

 

[AmberLops]

Oh and I don't have my buck next to my doe...he's in another room!

 

[Bunnylady]

@Bunnylady can they abort at will ?

Not really. The few cases of spontaneous abortion that I have witnessed have been the result of a serious stress - an injury, or ( as in one case) getting moved from one rabbitry to another via an hours-long car ride; that kind of thing. Rabbits that are experiencing long-term stresses like starvation can absorb their litters, but I don't know just how far into a pregnancy that remains a viable option for the doe.

 

[B&B Happy goats]

Not really. The few cases of spontaneous abortion that I have witnessed have been the result of a serious stress - an injury, or ( as in one case) getting moved from one rabbitry to another via an hours-long car ride; that kind of thing. Rabbits that are experiencing long-term stresses like starvation can absorb their litters, but I don't know just how far into a pregnancy that remains a viable option for the doe.

Thank you for answering my question,