when you breed rabbits how long does it take for them to have the babies and what is the best way to take care

Question

of them when they are born?

Answer 1

A rabbit's gestation lasts for only a month.
You need to record when you bred the rabbits, keep track of time until 28 days have gone by, and then put in a nest box and bedding (inside the nest box, that is). If the rabbit doesn't have babies in 36 days, call the vet, because the babies can't stay inside the doe. It will make her very, very sick and die.
After about 28 days, you should start checking your doe's nest box about twice every day. Since you need the exact day they were born on your pedigree, you need to keep meticulous records on all goings-on with your doe, such as mating date(s), the date you successfully palpate your doe and feel that she has babies, birth date, and weaning date.

When you do peek in and feel around and there are little tiny babies in the nest box, carefully count them, inspect their color, hunt the box for any dead ones, pick them out, and throw them away, and then leave the mother alone for the rest of the day. Make sure there are no very loud noises around the mother and babies, and make sure no one touches them too much. Both of these could cause both a scattered litter, which is when the mother kicks her litter out of the nest box and they are helplessly scattered around the cage and left to die, or cannibalism, which is when the other eats one, some or all her babies because she thinks danger could be near and she doesn't want to leave her litter there because it could lead her "predator" to her more easily.

CANNIBALISM
This is not a disease, but it is something to watch out for. Clues that would tell you this is what happened are scattered remnants of flesh around the cage and nest box or missing young from the box (if there are any missing young but no blood, check the cage thoroughly to make sure it didn't just tumble out of the box). You can't do anything to stop this, but you can help prevent it by not allowing any loud or disturbing noises around the doe, and preferably no dogs or cats (or any other small animal predator) right in the animal's face. This doesn't mean that you can't have these animals if you want to breed rabbits (I have two cats and a dog and thirty-six rabbits), just don't allow them right in front of the doe's cage. Do not save any young does from a cannibalistic doe's litter for breeding purposes because this trait could easily be passed down to the young.

CAKED UDDER
Does that are heavy milk producers are more easily affected by this problem. Again, I don't know if I would call this a disease, just an illness. The way you can identify this problem is by checking the doe's teats, or nipples. They will become red and inflamed, and the udder, or the part of the stomach around the teats, becomes hard and hot to touch. This is caused by the doe not letting enough milk flow. This can be caused by a very small litter on a doe with too much milk, or weaning the babies off the mother too soon and suddenly, leaving the mother with too much milk left. If the doe's litter is too small, add some babies from a doe with a larger litter to her litter. If you only bred one rabbit, that could be bad. It is ALWAYS a good idea to breed two or more does at a time for reasons like this. If the babies were weaned two early, stick a couple of the babies back in with the mother to empty out her milk. If they are cracked and sore from the mother hitting her belly on the rim of the nest box too often, rub some antibacterial cream on it to soothe the bruising and to soften the skin so it will not bruise so easily. Also, if left alone, it may lead to a form of mastits due to pressure from milk buildup.

COCCIDIOSIS
This is a very serious disease which occurs quite often in young, weaned rabbits. It is caused by a protozoan, so to prevent this disease, keep your rabbit's living area very clean and well-kept. Symptoms of this disease would be a pot belly, loss of appetite, thinness, and diarrhea. Upon examination, the liver would be spotted white and the small intestine would be inflamed. The coccidia parasite grows in the intestine after being ingested by the rabbit. They very easily grow in dirty water and unsanitary living conditions, so that's why almost all of my rabbits drink out of water bottles and are cleaned once a week. If your rabbit drinks from a bowl, make sure to rinse it out every evening and give the rabbit fresh water to drink. If you have very large rabbits,you should clean them about twice a week. If you have smaller rabbits, once a week will do. The use of sulfa solutions in the water is a treatment for this disease. Use the solution as directed on the package for poultry.

MASTITIS
This disease has one cause similar to caked udders. This disease is caused either by bruising the milk glands while jumping over the side of the nest box or a bacterial infection, which cows also get. You will see tender, sore or swollen milk glands with a bluish coloring to them. If a doe has infectious mastitis, do not put her young in with another mother that is uninfected. The young could pass on the bacterial infection to their new mother. A good practice is to sanitize the nest box and hutch after each litter each doe has. Remove any sharp objects within the hutch, and check that your nest box has one side that is considerably lower than the other three so that the doe can easily jump over the edge without hurting herself, but the young cannot get out themselves yet. They will probably not try to get out of the box until much later, but you should always be cautious.
Hope this helps...........

Answer 2

Badgirl41 gave you a lot of good info. I'd like to add a little more to what she told you. A rabbit's pregnancy (her gestation period) lasts 28-32 days. A rabbit most of the time will have them right at 30 days and it is a good idea to put the nest box in 2 days beforehand (on the 28th day). Don't worry about the doe going over 36 days on her pregnancy. I've raised thousands of rabbits over 24 years and have yet to have one go over 32 days. If it does seem like the rabbit went over 32 days, it's probably because the doe didn't actually take till her second breeding and the person thought she took on the first breeding. Anyways, here's a couple tips:

Make the nest box just a little bigger than the doe herself, about 2" wider and 2" longer than her body when she is laying down. The rabbit is looking for a good place to hide when she has her babies, get the nestbox too big and she will want to try having them possibly between the nestbox and a wall of the cage. For the floor of the nest box. I recommend using pegboard. The holes in the pegboard allow any urine to drain out if the doe pees in the nest box. If the holes aren't there, ammonia will build up in the nest box and she may not milk her babies like she should. Rabbits don't like odors in their nest box. Normally a doe will have more babies than she can actually milk and one or two will die. That's why it's good to check once a day for dead babies and to remove them. Odors are also why I recommend against using hay or wood chips to bed a nest box. Hay and wood chips have more of an odor and I have noticed more of a tendency for the doe to scatter her litter outside the nest box when these two beddings are used compared to straw. I recommend always using straw for nest box bedding. It has less of an odor, just make sure you don't use moldy smelling straw.

Also make sure that the bedding doesn't get to thin in the nest box. If the babies work their way down to the floor of the nest box and it becomes slick, it can cause sproddled leg where one of the rabbit's back legs abnormally juts out to the side. Also be careful to keep the nest box tightly against the cage walls and check regularly that no babies have crawled between the nest box and the cage. Baby bunnies tend to get stuck between the nest box and cage and die, especially not long after they get their eyes open.

Like badgirl41 said, it is very important to keep the cage and water/water bowls clean. This will help prevent coccidiosis and other diseases. The babies can be weaned when they are about 60 days old.

Oh yeah, don't worry about handling the babies. The does won't quit milking the babies if you handle them, especially if its used to you feed it and handling it. I often handle my baby bunnies daily or even minutes after they are born. People that raise marked breeds such as Dutch or Checkered Giants will often check the markings of their babies when they are born. This allows them to keep the good marked rabbits and reduce the size of the litter down to a number they know the doe can raise.

One last thing that nobody mentioned. You'll want to check the eyes of the baby bunnies. If you notice that basically all of the baby bunnies have their eyes open and one doesn't. You'll want to pull that baby's eyes open, otherwise it may go blind. If the baby has a white mucas-like substance that tends to keep the eyelids stuck together, then get some regular Visine and put a couple drops in each eye. You may have to pull the eyes open a couple times and repeat this a couple times. The Visine will cure the mucas problem on the eyes.

Answer 3

I use to breed rabbits when I was a kid and all you really have to do is monitor the female rabbits gesation period (30 days) and around the 27th day are so remove the male to another cage. and be sure to provide the female with plenty of fresh bedding such as fresh hay are grass. I also use to breed guinea pigs and they are a hell of alot funner to breed and the babies come out with fur and there eyes open and basic motor skills intact. I strongly recommend breeding guinea pigs over rabbits. Also local pet shops tend to pay good money for the babies too.

Answer 4

dont know if anyones told you but try to seperate the rabbits since the male sometimes gets agresive also feed the female meat shortly before or during birth since she might try to eat her young this meat can be sandwich meat anything wouldnt recomend raw meat uncooked meat best way to care for the young is to let mom do it my female rabbit didnt like humans messing with her babies and if I did she killed them there are some rabbit books u could read check the library thats where i got my info when i bred rabbits

Answer 5

Rabbits are pregnant for about 25 days or so........and you don't need to do anything for the babies except make sure the nest box is clean and that momma feeds all the babies and doesn't neglect them

Answer 6

Rabbits are pregnant for 28 to 31 days. And baby rabbits should be kept with their mother for at least eight weeks. Here's some great info on all the details and what you should and shouldn't do -
http://www.bio.miami.edu/hare/surpriselitter.html
http://www.bio.miami.edu/hare/orphan.html

Very best of luck to you all!

Answer 7

I've never bred rabbits, although I have one as a pet, but I've also heard that you need to be sure the mama bunny has enough water, because if she doesn't she might eat the babies. That could just be a myth, though.

Answer 8

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Answer 9

One thing to be careful about is that the mother can get pregnant again on the same day she has the babies, and then may neglect the new ones and leave them to die.