My Female Rabbit Isent Having Babys. Whats Wroungh With Her?

Question

I Have Had Rabbits For 2 Years. And i Have Recently [About 1 Year Ago] I Got 2 Lionhead Bunnies. When I Got Them They Were Babys, And Since Then They Have Lived in the same cage. one is a female, one is a male. The Place i got them breeds rabbits. and they checked n made sure they gave me a female & a male. also i went to the vet to get there nails clipped. and they checked also to make sure they were differnt sexes. and they were. He was even suprised they havent had babys yet! What Should I Do?

No they are not Siblings. And well they seem very attracted to eachother, they do everything together actualy. they Sleep together, eat together & drink water together. its pretty crazy.

Im taking sum people advice and getting another rabbit cage. to seperate them for a bit. i hope this helps & i thank eveyone for the help. but if you have ne other info let me know. but they are NOT the same sex. I have had them checked by a vet.

Answer 1

First off, you're doing the right thing by seperating them into two cages. Breeding rabbits should be a controlled thing.

Lionheads should be at least 6 months of age. Some vets and breeders have made mistakes and misdiagnosed the sexes of rabbits. Especially if the buck has a split penis... it will look A LOT like a doe. However, once sexually mature his testicles will decend which is a telltale sign that it's a buck. So flip your rabbits over and look for testicles just to make sure they are of opposite genders.

Okay, so you want to breed... here are some proper steps to take.

First you need to see if your doe is ready. Rabbits don't have a regular heat cycle. Other mammals usually go into heat just two or three times a year, but a mature female rabbit can go into heat almost every time she's with a male. Rabbits are what's known as "induced ovulators," which refers to the fact that a doe will ovulate after being mounted by a buck. This means that it's possible for a doe to become pregnant again within 24 hours of giving birth.

To tell if your doe is ready you'll need to look at her vent area. If it is a dark pink to red color she's ready to breed. You'll need to acutally expose the genitals to do this. Put your thumb and index finger on the vent area (right above the anus) and seperate the skin towards the head and tail. The genitals will "pop" out.

Always take the doe to the bucks' cage - never the other way around. The doe may become protective of her territory and attack the buck or the buck may be more interested in the new surroundings and not pay any attention to the doe. Either way - the job won't get done.

Here are the steps of a successful mating.:

Put the doe in the buck's cage
The buck will mount the doe and begin to breed her.
When doe is ready to accept the buck, she will raise her hind end and lift her tail.
When the actual mating has occurred, the buck will give a little scream, or grunt and fall off of the doe.
You should let this occur about 2-4 times. Repeat this process 6-12 hours later to ensure a good breed and to possibly increase the litter size. Why? Rabbits are induced ovulators, meaning they won't ovulate until stimulated to do so. Usually ovulation will occur 8-10 hours after being stimulated (brought on by breeding). By re-breeding in this time frame, you're increasing your chances of not only the doe getting pregnant but you'll usually get a larger litter.

Now sometimes a doe is in such a heat that she is very aggressive. She may chase the buck around the cage or even try to mount him. Let this go - it's just nature taking control. If she gets too aggressive, she may frighten the buck or be so aggressive he can't "do his job". If this is the case, you may need to restrain her. But more often times than not, he'll be able to breed her with no problems.

28 Days after the doe has been breed you will need to put in a kindling box... so MARK YOUR CALENDAR!!!

For additional information on rabbits, rabbit care, breeding and other rabbit related topics, stop by my website. www.TranquilAcresRabbitry.com and go to the ARTICLES page.

Answer 2

Some bucks (boys) are affected by living with a doe (causing lower sperm counts). Some does won't breed if kept with a buck (afraid the buck will kill any babies). Or the doe dominates the buck so bad, he won't try to mount her. They really should not be living together if you want them to breed. It is not natural for a doe to share her territory with a buck, especially if she (or you) wants babies. In the wild they come together to breed and then she chases him off. She raises the litter alone. Keeping the buck with her raises the risk that if she does deliver a litter, she will kill them (it's her way of preventing the buck from "getting them").
Or it could be a physical problem with one or both of them. Sometimes the buck's testicles don't descend all the way and the buck is sterile. Some does develop fatty deposits around their uterine horns (uterus) that prevents conception. This can happen especially if they are overfed, given too many treats, or the doe is too old...
One option would be to seperate them, (so she has her own territory) and take her back to the rabbitry you got her from and ask if one of their proven bucks will stand to stud for her. If she has a litter, you'll know it's your buck. If she doesn't, it's probably her.
Why are you breeding them? Do you have good homes set up for babies?
If they are bonded and friendly, have him neutered (to avoid surprises) and let them be. You will have to seperate them if she has babies, for at least 6 weeks. The separation could cause him to miss her so bad, he'll get sick. Why upset the relationship...?
(Oh, and rabbit siblings will certainly breed with each other if given the opportunity... it's not a good idea at all, but once they get to a certain age, they don't recognise others as litter mates. Rodent boys will even try breeding back to their mothers if left together too long. And rabbits are not Rodents, they are Lagomorphs.)

Answer 3

Yeah, I'd recommend separating the two rabbits. However, you may have ruined the buck as far as breeding. If you keep a buck growing up in the same pen with other rabbits it may have no idea what to do when a doe is thrown in with him to breed her. The same can sometimes happen when you wait too long to attempt starting to breed with a buck. You throw the doe in with the buck and the buck has no idea what to do and it will hardly even mount her. I imagine your buck hardly even mounts her.

You also have a couple other problems on your hands as far as I can tell. You've waited till both rabbits were over a year old before you started breeding. That's too long to wait. Once a doe starts getting past 10 months old it starts developing fat around the ovaries. The older the rabbit gets and the fatter the rabbit is the more fat it gets around the ovaries. Once the fat gets there you can't get it off no matter how much you try starving the rabbit. That fat will for the most part tend to prevent your doe from having babies. And if she has too much fat around the ovaries and you do happen to get her bred she may die a few days before she is due to conceive the babies. This is a disease called ketosis and it is due to the rabbit breaking down the fat (a natural process), but when the fat is broken down it becomes a toxin in the rabbit's body. The toxin reaches lethal levels close to the time the babies are conceived or just a few days before.

So first thing, keep the buck and doe seperate next time.

Next thing, start breeding between 8 and 10 months old (12 months at the very latest). Don't wait till the rabbit is over a year old to start breeding or you are going to have a lot of trouble getting your rabbits bred. This is where so many rabbit breeders that show rabbits run into trouble. They'll get a really good show doe and keep showing her and showing her and because she is so good they avoid breeding her because once she is bred that is usually pretty much the end of that rabbit's showing career. However the breeder waits too long (past 10-12 months) and then they wonder why they always have trouble getting their best show does bred.

If the buck doesnt' want to mount, sometimes it's good to put them across from an old buck that is a veteran as far as breeding rabbits. The competition or seeing the old buck breed can sometimes help get the young unexperienced bucks to breed better. If you wait till a buck is too old to start breeding with them, they may never become good (aggressive) at breeding.

There are a few other things you can do such as forced breeding (using a shoestring to pull the tail up to allow the buck to more easily breed her), adding a small squirt of wheat germ oil to the feed (It has Vitamin E which helps fertility), and repeated breeding attempts. Eight hours after the first attempt is a good idea because the doe drops eggs about 8 hours after being thrown in with a buck, try back 1 day after, then 3 days after, then 1 week after the first attempt. This will help better ensure the rabbit gets bred. If you see the doe starting to fight she is probably bred.

Finally, ALWAYS put the doe in the buck's pen and never vice versa. The buck should be kept in HIS domain because he already knows it and has marked out HIS area. If you put him in the doe's pen, he will start checking out the pen and start attempting to mark it by rubbing his chin around the pen to put his scent on it. You don't want him distracted and checking out the pen. You want him getting down to business.

If you try in the winter, you may want to leave the lights on where your rabbits are at. Rabbits breed better when they have more light. That's why commercial rabbitries will leave the lights on at times and will often paint the insides of rabbit bars white to reflect more light.

Besides myself, Mindy has the best advice. Rabbits are induced ovulators like she said. So listen to her advice and mine.

One very last thing. Many times what I'll do as far as breeding is I'll watch the behavior of my does. Doe rabbits don't have a heat cycle per se, but they do have times when their hormone levels go up. You can normally tell this when they start getting a little testy or you see them raise their hindquarters up when you pet them over the rear end. This is the perfect time to breed your rabbit. She will breed much more easily when her hormone levels are high like that. I will often breed my does when they are about to ween off their litters and I see them starting to get testy with their babies attempting to milk or bother her. They will normally breed well then too.

Answer 4

I've seen some very creative spelling in Yahoo answers, but yours takes the cake, also why are capitalizing every first word?
But I digress...the reason your bunnies aren't breeding is because they aren't attracted to each other. One of them isn't digging being with the opposite sex. It happens in all species...and I should know.

Answer 5

It could be they don't like each other. Maybe they don't know what to do. You could separate them for a little while, then put them back together..that might turn the heat up.

Or you could try to get another bunny, maybe the problem is with one of them? I wish you luck, sorry no babies yet.

Answer 6

My guess is that you have two of the same sex or that one or both were neutered or spayed when you got them. Luckily, since we don't need anymore rabbits with so many unwanted rabbits in shelters.

Answer 7

some breeds are more difficult to get breed than others. Just give them time i'm sure they will have babies.

Answer 8

Are they siblings? Most rodents will not mate with littermates!