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

Expectant Does

               The Chinchilla doe is resting after overhauling the newspapers in her nest box.

We purposefully made the nest box of the Chinchilla doe slightly bigger because she is bigger in size than the Cinnamon doe. We put in the nest box inside the cage on the 28th day after breeding and that is today, the 16th of August. Knowing this, we made some preparations for the delivery and we cut up a lot of old newspapers into 1/2 inch strips and used these as a litter to line up the bottom of the nest boxes. The litter came up to about four inches from the wire bottom. Then we cut up a cardboard box that would fit outside the wire bottom of the next boxes. This will serve as a cover against any down draft coming from the floor of the all-wire cages. It would be easy to change the cardboard at the bottom of the wire box once it gets dirty. All we need to do is to lift up the nest box and change the cardboard underneath where it was sitting on since the cardboard is not attached to the bottom. When everything was ready, we put each nest box inside their individual cages. The two does didn't know what to make of their nest box at first and they started chewing on the wood. Then they got inside their individual nest box and started to dig in and brought everything out! What are we going to do now?

                       This is the Cinnamon doe resting after she re-arranged her nest box.

We were observing them as this is our first time to raise rabbits. When they got tired of jumping in and out of their nest box, they would take a rest and would stretch out to their full length on the wire floor right next to their iced-water bottle. Then after a few minutes, they would go back inside the nest box again and would bury themselves in the newspaper cuttings and they would continue to dig. After some time, they came out of their nest box and we noticed that they were gathering the newspapers in their mouth that were strewn all over and they were putting them back inside the nest box! They were rearranging the newspapers in the nest box the way they wanted it done! So don't try to rearrange their nest, just let them do as they please because they know best what they want and how they want their beds done. To us newbies, we thought that was really amazing because we've never seen rabbits making their nest before. The size of the nest box that we gave them was really perfect for each of them. They can turn around inside and they could get in and out of it easily as well. So now it’s just a wait and see because they can give birth within two days after putting in the nest box or any day and anytime from now. 

Rabbit Housing: Cages on the Right Wall

My brother Joe just finished making the last two pieces of our all-wire rabbit cages this afternoon and he already hanged these on the right side wall of the rabbitry. The size dimension of the upper cages are 2 feet wide by 3 1/2 feet long by 18 inches in height. The bottom cages are 2 feet wide by 3 feet long by 17 inches in height to fit the space because of the half-post in the corner. Just above the cages on the right wall is a long window without any window frame. It is only 8 inches high by 8 feet long. This serves as a ventilation outlet which is why it is located high up near the roof to allow the hot/warm air to get out. The overhang from the roof protects this outlet from the rain and we covered this with a 1 x 1 inch wire mesh gauge # 16 to keep out the birds.

I lifted up the linoleum to show you the scrap GI sheet materials that we used in making the floor under the rabbit cages. My brother Joe, used a rivetter to join together the small pieces of scrap GI sheet materials to make the necessary size for the floor that would go under the cages. I bought some

cheap linoleum to cover and protect the GI sheet floor under the cages from being corroded by the rabbit's urine. We kept all these scrap materials in the old pigsty knowing that they would come in handy someday and they did when we built this rabbitry. It has helped us a lot in cutting down our cost. All of our all-wire cages are made of wire gauge no. 16 for the top and the sides and we used gauge no. 14 for the floor. My brother Joe made all of the cages with a lot of patience even if he sustained some cuts because the wires are hard and strong.  

  

Rabbit Breeding

These two does of Chinchilla mix breed are the only surviving does that are left in my breeding stock after I lost two New Zealand does. I had these  two remaining does mated with the Cinnamon/Chinchilla mix breed buck at the same time around 9 AM of July 18, 2011. I first took one doe and brought it to the buck's cage. What happened next was very funny because it was the doe that was mounting the buck! She was really ready for mating and she kept chasing and mounting the buck who was getting away from her. After a few minutes, the buck started to smell the doe and was going around her in circles. Then all of a sudden he mounted the doe and then fell over on his back! It happened so fast I don't think it even lasted for a few seconds. We were all watching this mating episode out of curiosity because this is our first time to breed our rabbits. After the buck has rested for a few minutes, the does started to mount the buck again. So we let the buck do his job twice and then we took off the doe and put her back in her cage. Then we got the other doe and put it inside the bucks cage. She just went running around while the buck was trying to get near her. After a few minutes of "getting to know you" scenario, the buck finally mounted her but we were not sure if it really went through. She wasn't cooperating as the other doe. Finally, we took her out and put her back in her cage to calm her down.

 After 8 hours, we put back the first doe in the buck's cage again for the second time just to make sure that the doe is impregnated. The buck did a good job and we took out the doe back to her own cage. Then we put the second doe in the bucks cage to do the same thing but it seemed that it was not working. Since it was getting late and I had to start my cooking, so we decided to let the doe stay with the buck for the night. When we went inside the rabbitry the next morning, she seemed calm and satisfied because she was laying with her body stretched to its full length. So we took her out and put her back in her own cage. It has been 15 days since we had the does mated and I am afraid of palpating the does just in case I make a mistake. Their tummies are getting big anyway so that should be a good sign that they are pregnant.    

The picture above shows the two bucks that we currently have. I used the white and brown spotted buck to mate with the two does. He was born on December 15, 2011 so he is now 7 months and 3 days old and this is his first time to be used for breeding. He is a mix breed of Cinnamon and Chinchilla. The black buck is a mix breed of Chinchilla and New Zealand and he will be 7 months old by August 02, 2011.

None of these rabbits are brothers or sisters because I personally picked them from different does who have given birth all at the same time. The breeder who happens to be my neighbor has 12 breeding does and several replacement does and bucks in his rabbitry. My plan is to use the black buck to mate with the two Chinchilla does after they give birth to their first litter. I am hoping that I will have some litters from the two does by the 18-19 of August. By that time, the black buck would be 9 months old and the two does would have had 2 weeks of rest after weaning their litters. I plan on weaning their litters at 1 month and two weeks old so the does will have at least two weeks of rest before being mated again.