Does That Won’t Breed
Please note: If the idea of talking about breeding rabbits offends you personally. Then you won’t want to read the rest of the post. You’re welcome to browse the rest of my site though.
Here is some advice from Ashlyn of After the Rain Rabbitry. A rabbitry that is no longer producing bunnies, but always was full of adorable little kits. If anyone knows how to keep does breeding it’s Ashlyn!
“To breed my rabbits, I have a whole process to get my bunnies in the “mood” and in attempt to produce large litters. First I take the buck out, look over him, trim his nails, clean his vent, and if he has any excess fur around his groan area I trim it as short as I can (don’t need hair hindering things). Then I put him in a 5′ pen out on the yard. While he gets used to his new surroundings, I take the doe out of her cage, and give her the same “beauty treatment.” I also take a warm wet paper towel and dab it gently across her groan area a couple times to get her stimulated and ready for the buck. I think this tactic really helps with stubborn does. I also rub her back until I can get her to push up her tail — then I know she’s ready! At this point I will take her out to the buck, and since it’s been about 15 minutes he’s already comfortable and feeling macho in his territory which is good. I’ll put her in the pen and then wait until they have a few goes at it, and once I know they’ve been successful at least twice, I leave them together for about 2 hours to continue breeding or to just cuddle with each other. Then I separate them and put them back in their cages. This is all done in the late morning. In the afternoon/evening, about 4-5 hours later, I put the doe in the buck’s cage and leave her in there for another 2-3 hours. They are usually successful at least once or twice in the cage. Then they are separated, and the doe is pregnant. Since I started this method, all of my does — even the most stubborn ones like Shimmer — have all produced nice litters. I like it because I don’t get any more disappointments after waiting 31 days and realizing the doe never even took and I have to start all over. I think the preparation beforehand, leaving them together for so long, and using both the pen and the cage technique, works wonders. I also try to keep a broody atmosphere in my rabbitry by putting the buck’s cages right next to the does I want to breed next, and leaving the light on from sunset to 11pm every night (natural light streams in from outside, so they have daytime between 7am-11pm).”
After Ashlyn also added, ”Also I have found that feeding Show Bloom (1 tsp) and Calf Manna (1 tbsp) daily during the entire pregnancy helps reduce the number of stillborns overall.”
I know everyone has their own tips and tricks. Things that they think works to get does interested.
One that’s very common is to tickle the doe right under her tail until she raises her rear. After doing that a few times, she seems to “get in the mood”.
I’m writing this post mainly for newer breeders having trouble with does.
Please note however that you don’t want to try to force to breed an unwilling older doe, better to use young ones still interested.
Anyway, there’s a post from me. I actually updated the blog. I should get an award…Just kidding.