Breeding 3d Generation Rabbits

Last Saturday ( July 08, 2012), I bred-back for the second time the black doe of Cinnamon breed and the New Zealand white doe with the Junior Chinchilla buck. This buck is from the 3rd litter of my original stock of Chinchilla doe. I call him Junior Chinchilla to differentiate him from his father which was already sold sometime ago. I would have used the New Zealand buck to mate with the New Zealand doe but I wanted to see if  the malocclusion problem will still come up on the doe's 3rd litter. This is why I had her mated with the Junior Chinchilla buck.

New Zealand doe

2nd Generation Cinnamon Replacement doe 

New Zealand buck

Junior Chinchilla buck

I also kept one female from the 3rd generation of my original stock of Chinchilla doe and raised her as replacement doe. Since this doe is a sibling of the Junior Chinchilla buck, I could not mate them together to avoid inbreeding. So I used the New Zealand buck instead to mate with this doe. What was so funny about it was that after their first mating, the doe kept still just lying on her back and I was afraid that she may have suffered a heart attack! So I opened the cage and touched her gingerly but she didn't move! That kinda scared me. I touched her again and she jumped right back on her feet. I guess she was just shocked because this was her first time to be mated.

3rd Generation Chinchilla Replacement Doe

Anyway, I also kept one kit from the 3rd litter of the Cinnamon doe and raised her as replacement doe. She did a lot of running and jumping when I put her in the buck's cage. I guess she was scared since this is her first time to be mated.

3rd Generation Cinnamon Replacement Doe

Fourth Generation Litters of Cinnamon and Chinchilla Does

These are the pictures of the Original stock of Cinnamon doe with her 4th litter as shown in the picture below. She gave birth to her 4th litter with 6 healthy kits on April 24, 2012. Her kits are still with her in the same cage as of this writing because I am running out of cages! When I first started raising these rabbits, I could not wait for them to grow up and start breeding. Now that they are breeding, I am getting overwhelmed with rabbits! They really multiply so fast and it's a good thing that I had the cages built and ready before I even started raising these original stocks of rabbits. Their cages are 2.5 feet wide by 3 feet long so there is enough space for the doe and her kits. I will be harvesting some meat rabbits on the first week of July so that will give me some empty cages and I could transfer these litters from their mothers. The kits are almost 2 months old in this picture below. I plan on giving these two original Cinnamon and Chinchilla does a rest from breeding to give them a chance to recuperate from all the kindling that they've been through for four consecutive breeding season. Maybe a month of rest from breeding will do them good so they could regain back their strength and stamina.

Original Cinnamon breeding stock at the back with her 4th litter.

Original stock of Cinnamon breed

The pictures below are that of my original stock of Chinchilla doe and her 4th litter. When we placed the Chinchilla doe inside the Chinchilla buck's cage to be bred, she was very eager and ready to mate but the buck was not! He must have gotten tired because we used him first to mate with the Cinnamon. It was really funny and comical to watch them because the doe was humping the head of the buck and the latter was all hunched down cowering in the corner. He played the role of "hard-to-get" until the doe got tired and settled down somewhat and then the buck was able to do his deed. Anyway, she kindled 5 healthy kits on April 23, 2012. Unfortunately, one of the kits of the Chinchilla was found in the gutter one morning. The kit must have been clinging to her mother's teat when the doe hopped out of her nest box after nursing her pups and the kit was carried along with her. There is no other way for the kit to have crawled out of its nest box at that time because the litter were not even a week old at that time. When the doe nurses her kits, she does not lie on her side like what dogs and cats usually do but rather, she sits and kinda leans forward a little while her kits feed on her teats. Anyway, there are only 4 kits living with their mother now in the same cage until I could transfer them in their own cage. 

Malocclusion Problem

We encountered a malocclusion or misaligned teeth problem with just 1 kit from among the 1st and 2nd litters of my original stock of Chinchilla doe. The kit could hardly eat because of its protruding teeth, then it got thinner and thinner until we had to destroy it. The thing is, we did not notice this problem at first until the kit was about 3-4 months old. I told my neighbor Johnny ( he's the source of my breeding stocks) about this and he traced the parentage of my original Chinchilla doe but unfortunately, he already slaughtered the mother and father of my breeding stock and said that he did not encounter any of this malocclusion problem with his rabbits before. He advised me not to keep this doe with this malocclusion problem because it might show up again in the future. It's just that I did not want to destroy this Chinchilla doe because she is a good mother and I like her big sized body. Besides, I am only raising rabbits for meat and not for show rabbits so I decided to keep her. The third time that she gave birth, I did not see any of the malocclusion problem among her kits so I kept one of them as replacement doe. I also encountered this malocclusion problem with 2 kits from the first litter of the New Zealand rabbit. When I re-bred her again the second time, I did not see it in her second litter which happened to be just one kit. I was not able to take pictures of the rabbits that were afflicted with this malocclusion problem but I did find some free images on the net to show you what it looks like.

 

Second Generation Black Doe: 1st litter

When my original breeding stock of Cinnamon doe gave birth to her second litter, there were 4 males and 3 females. One of the female was bought by a neighbor's kid as her pet when the kit was 1 1/2 months old. I kept the remaining 2 black female as replacement does. I call them as second generation replacement does to distinguish them from the first replacement does. Anyway, when they were ready for breeding, another neighbor came to ask if he could buy a ready-to-breed doe because he did not want to have to raise a rabbit from 1 1/2 months old until breeding time. I was hesitant at first to sell him the doe because I was just starting to increase my breeding stock which is why I am keeping the females. Anyway, I gave in and sold them one of the ready-to-breed black doe so as not to disappoint his son who was with him at that time. The boy was very eager to bring home a big rabbit for his pet and for breeding. So that left me with only one black doe for breeding. I bred her for the first time with the black Chinchilla buck on March 22, 2012 and she kindled her first litter of 5 healthy kits on April 24, 2012. These are their pictures below.

This is the second generation replacement doe and the pictures above are her first litter.

New Zealand: Second Litter

The New Zealand doe was re-bred to the New Zealand buck on April 20, 2012. This re-breeding process was done 6 weeks after she gave birth to her first litter and one week before weaning her first litter. Once again, we brought her to the New Zealand buck's cage and after the buck serviced her twice, we removed her and put her back in her cage together with her first litter. She started molting soon after but she grew back some new hair after two weeks and every thing went back to normal. One month after the re-breeding, she gave birth on May 24, 2012. It came as a big surprise to us because she had only 1 pup! This is our first time to have just 1 pup from our rabbits. We even took out the nest box just to check if there are other pups that may be hidden under the litter but there was nothing except for this one pup. Satisfied that we did not miss any dead pup, we covered up the pup with its mother's fur and put back the nest box into the cage. Since the pup has no siblings, she gets to have all the milk from her mother so she is really growing fast. I think that I will have to give this doe a rest after this second litter. She can nurse her one pup for 2 months instead of the usual 1 and 1/2 months that we do for the other rabbits. She could rest for 1 month after weaning the pup and then she will have recovered enough to be re-bred again by August. This picture below shows the big baby rabbit at 3 weeks old and her mother, the New Zealand doe.

 

New Zealand doe and her kit

First Generation Replacement Doe # 1: 2nd Litter

On April 20,2012, I bred-back the first generation replacement doe with the broken-back Chinchilla buck. Six weeks or 1 1/2 month after giving birth to her first litter, she was bred-back again. She could still nurse her babies for one week before her milk dries up and by that time, her kits would be on their own. As usual, we took her out of her cage and brought her to the buck's cage for mating. They do their own dance of merry-go-round until one of them gets tired and that's when the male could perform his deed. We have to see to it that every time we mate them, the doe will be serviced twice by the buck just to increase her chance of getting pregnant. We usually do our breeding in the evening when the day is not so hot so as not to stress the rabbits and they can perform better this way. If the doe is not ready to mate, she will show an aggressive behavior towards the buck. If this happens, just take out the doe from the cage then try and put her back into the buck's cage again after an hour. If this doesn't work, then do the mating early the next morning when the doe is more receptive to the buck's advances. You'd know if the doe "got it" if during their mating, the buck makes a grunt and tumbles down on its side. It's really comical to watch them but while they're mating but it's necessary if you want to make sure that the buck really gave the doe his semen. Anyway, these are the 8 kits from the second litter of replacement Doe # 1, they were born on May 21, 2012.

The baby rabbits are out of the nest box

First Generation Replacement Doe # 1 with her 2nd set of litter

I'm wondering why the kits are outside and the doe is inside the nest box?

First Generation Replacement Doe # 2: 2nd Litter

The doe in the picture below is Replacement Doe #2 with her second set of litter. We re-bred this doe on April 20, 2012 to the broken-back Chinchilla buck. She kindled to 7 healthy kits on May 21, 2012. In breeding a rabbit, take out the doe from her cage and bring her to the buck's cage for mating. Never do it the other way around because female rabbits are extremely territorial by nature. They could harm the buck if you bring the buck over to their cage. When we first brought the doe to the buck's cage, she was fidgety and kept on running around in circles. After a few minutes of merry go round, the doe finally settled down and the buck was able to do his deed. We had to watch that the buck serviced her twice before we removed her from the buck's cage and put her back in her own cage together with her first set of litter. She could still nurse her first litter for one week before we remove and separate her from her kits. After you bring back the doe to her cage, watch her for about 30 minutes. If the doe makes a pee 30 minutes after the breeding process, this means that the semen could be washed away and this means that you have to repeat the same process all over again. Luckily, she did not make a pee and to calm her down, we gave her some sweet potato leaves to nibble on. The pictures below are the result of this second bred-back with her 8 healthy kits, her second set of litter.

First generation replacement doe # 2 with her 2nd set of litters

Piggy back

On top of the world

You were saying.......

I wanna drink too!

First Generation Replacement Doe # 3: 1st Litter

 The picture below is called Doe #3 and her first litter. She is one of the 3 replacement does that we kept from the first litter of my original stock of Cinnamon breed. Since we bred the original Cinnamon doe to the Chinchilla buck, so this makes her a half Cinnamon and half Chinchilla mix. We bred all 3 replacement does on Februay 04, 2012 but only two of her siblings, Doe #1 and Doe #2 got pregnant whereas this Doe #3 did not take.

Have you ever tried to palpate a rabbit for pregnancy check just to see if there are babies that formed inside her? Well I haven't done this myself for fear that I may be doing more harm than good just in case I make a mistake in palpating the doe. I have read about this subject on the Internet but I do not have the nerve to try it on my rabbits. If the doe does not get pregnant the first time, then perhaps she will the next time we try to have her mated again. The recommended age before the doe can be bred is at 6 months old. She was born on August 18, 2011 so she was already 5 1/2 months old when I first attempted to mate her with the Chinchilla buck on February 04, 2012. Unfortunately, she did not get pregnant.

So on April 09, 2012, I decided to have her mated with the New Zealand buck. We counted 28 days after she was mated and then we put in the nest box and some cut-up newspapers inside the cage. Gestation period takes 30-31 days before she delivers her first litter so she has two days to fix her nest. Once she feels that she is ready to make her nest, she would gather the cut up newspapers in her mouth and bring these to her nest. She will be busy jumping in and out of her nest box but just let her arrange her nest the way she wants it done. You will notice, too, that she will pull some fur from her dewlap and fill the nest box with these. This will help ensure that her kits will be warm once she delivers. They usually kindle at night or early in the morning. Finally, on May 09, 2012, she delivered 8 healthy kits. We removed the nest box 15 days after the kits were born, this is to prevent the kits from getting any disease from the litter in the nest box. We sometimes leave the nest box much longer than the recommended 15 days especially if the weather is cold. Since it is summer when they were born, and they were already leaving their nest box more often, so we took off the nest box and we just left a piece of cardboard on the floor for them to sleep on. 

  

Doe #3 and her 1st litter

New Zealand Doe Molting

This New Zealand doe was re-bred to the New Zealand buck 6 weeks after she gave birth to her first litter. We brought her to the buck's cage and the buck performed his deed and then we took her out and put her back in the cage together with her kits. The baby rabbits could still get some milk from their mother for a week before she dries up after which the kits will be separated from her. One week later, I noticed that the doe was shedding its hair especially around her belly and the back part of her waistline.This got me alarmed because she was already re-bred and so I went online and read about this subject. I found out that it is called molting. That molting is normal for rabbits and they shed their old hairs by grooming themselves and then new hairs will grow back in time. So that pacified my fears a little bit but I was still worried because I never had this with the other rabbits before. Maybe because the other rabbits are colored whereas this New Zealand is white so when the colored rabbits did their molting, it was not as bad as and as noticeable as with this NZ doe. Anyway, I  continued to observe this hair shedding until I noticed that her litter were losing some hairs on their faces as well!

These are pictures of the first litter of the New Zealand doe.

Male New Zealand Rabbits

 Now I was really alarmed! So I went online again to read more about this and I wrote down some medication that was recommended on the websites to treat the baby rabbits. Then I went to the pet shop where I buy my supplies for my rabbitry and the guy who owns the shop told me that he does not carry the medications in my list. However, he said that he did some rabbit farming before and he knew what I needed so he gave me an ointment that I could apply to the infected area on the baby rabbit's faces twice a week. When I got back home, we immediately separated the baby rabbits from their mother. We put the males together and the females together in separate cages and while we were doing this, I was treating their faces with the ointment at the same time. What we usually do is to take out the doe and just leave the baby rabbits in their original cage. However, since we have this condition with the baby rabbits losing hairs on their faces, I decided to just leave the doe in the cage and transfer the baby rabbits in their new cages while segregating them at the same time to contain the spread of whatever it is that has afflicted them. After treating the infected ones for two weeks, the hair on their faces grew back and everything went back to normal.

Female New Zealand Rabbits

New Zealand Babies Out of the Nest Box

The New Zealand baby rabbits are now able to hop out of their nest box. The babies could get out of their nest box usually between 10-12 days after birth and they try to follow their mother around. We usually remove the nest box out of the cage 15-18 days after the rabbit gives birth. This is also the time when they start to nibble on whatever it is that their mother is eating which is why it is important that we maintain the cleanliness in the rabbitry and keep the floor of the cages free from their droppings. Rabbits have two kinds of droppings, one is called fecal droppings which are true feces. These are rounded and hard and it doesn't smell but you usually find them on the floor under the cages but in our case, they usually end up rolling down into the gutter. The other is called cecotropes and is slightly wet with a slight stinky odor. The rabbits ingest this cecotropes back as it exits their anus but we don't usually see this happening because they seem to hide it somehow. So when and if you see a rabbit with its head on its anus, there is no need to be alarmed. The rabbit is only happily ingesting back the undigested cecotropes as this is packed with rich vitamins and minerals which is essential for their immunity system. We clean out their cages twice a day, once in the morning and once in the evening. We wash down the dropping board with water to clean out the smell of urine so the baby rabbits will not get sick. 

First Generation Replacement Doe # 2: 1st Litter

Replacement Doe # 2 was born on August 18, 2011 from the first litter of my original stock of Cinnamon breed which was mated with the original black Chinchilla buck. When she was 5 1/2 months old, on February 04,2011, I had her mated with the original black Chinchilla buck. She kindled her first litter of 2 healthy pups on March 08, 2012. There is an advantage of having just a few kits because they do not have to compete with their siblings for their mother's milk. This is why they have grown so fast and so big. In fact, they are twice bigger in size than the litter of the other replacement does that were born on the same day. We get a kick out of comparing them to the other kits. One of the kits is a male and he took after his mother's color which is brown, while the other is a female and is grey in color. We're keeping this female again and will raise her to become a replacement doe just like her mother. Anyway, these are the first litter of Replacement Doe # 3 at 10 days old.

Replacement doe # 2 with her first litter