Solar Ovens

Monday, September 12, 2011

Breeding the rabbits

Once you have baby rabbits, you can breed the parents again pretty soon.  If you really need meat, you can breed the doe within a few days of giving birth.  I'm doing it about a month apart while it's warm.  Gestation is about a month.
So you put the doe in with the buck.  Not the other way around, the doe is very territorial.  It doesn't take very long.  All my books said the male would squeal & fall over on his side afterwards.  Okaaay.
So I put her in.  He'd seem to get mostly done, & she'd kick him off.  I'm thinking how weird it is to be standing there, waiting for a rabbit to..."finish".   After about 10 min of this, I followed my books advice & took her out to try again another day.  The next time she wouldn't let him near her, she'd chase him away.  So I took her out & tried again 2 days later.  This time he seemed to get done, she didn't stop him, but there was no squeal or falling over.  hhhmmm.  So is she pregnant or not?  Apparently it's hard even for an expert to tell when a rabbit is expecting, so there was nothing to do but wait a month.  Some breeders do put her in again a few hours later to make sure.
My 8 year old watched, but really didn't understand what was going on.  I know farm kids see that stuff all the time, but it gave me pause.  But he seems unharmed!  So now we just had to wait.

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