Female bunnies reach sexual maturity before male rabbits and smaller breeds of rabbits reach sexual maturity before larger breeds. Small or dwarf breed female rabbits can reach sexual maturity as young as 3 months old, while larger breeds of rabbits take longer to reach sexual maturity.
Medium-sized female rabbit breeds can reach sexual maturity as early as 4 months, and giant-sized breeds as early as 5 months. Male rabbits reach sexual maturity a few months after females of the same size and age. Keep in mind that the ages listed above are the earliest seen bunnies reach sexual maturity, not the average. If you let your mature male and female rabbits interact, you can have a lot of rabbits really fast.
Around day 10 of pregnancy, your bunny is going to start getting a little more cranky. A pregnant doe needs her space, and she will get her space even if she has to be aggressive to do so. At this point, most expectant rabbits will not want to be held, even if they loved it just a few weeks ago. But they do gain a little weight. During pregnancy, you should continue a healthy diet that focuses on high-quality hay and limited high-quality pellets.
In addition, you might want to increase their daily serving of pellets to ensure they have all the essential nutrition during gestation to raise healthy bunnies. The most common sleeping position for a bunny is the loaf position where they sleep on their tummy with legs tucked under their body, thus resembling a loaf of bread.
However, when your bunny is pregnant, laying on their tummy often becomes uncomfortable so they switch to a side-sleeping position. Experienced rabbit breeders can palpate for babies at 10 days. Learning to palpate your rabbit in a manner that is safe for your bunny, her babies, and still effective takes some time.
Your veterinarian can use an ultrasound machine to detect rabbit pregnancy as early as 7 days, though most veterinarians prefer to wait for at least 12 days and up to 16 days before performing an ultrasound. This is a simple and safe procedure that you can learn on your own, but your veterinarian will have lots of experience with the procedure. As a side benefit, your vet will probably even teach you how to palpate your bunny as part of the office call.
Do be careful when feeling the bunnies, as the doe might not want to be handled and the babies are more fragile now than they were when you were feeling for them between 10 and 16 days into the pregnancy. All mother rabbits start building their birthing nest at different times.
Some at the last second, and others a few days before. The number that it could be is pretty wide-ranging. You could get anywhere from one baby rabbit to fourteen. Click here to view our other articles. We are very sorry, but the browser you are visting us with is outdated and not complient with our website security. Please upgrade your browser to a modern secure version to view our website. Usually, a rabbit will take hay or items it can carry in its mouth, or push blankets or loose bedding together to make a comfortable space to give birth.
A nesting rabbit may also pull its fur out to line the nest, which can be alarming to owners who don't know to expect this. If your rabbit is nesting, it will most likely give birth within a week and if your rabbit begins to pull its fur out, anticipate that the babies will be born within the next day or two. Most rabbits give birth at night, so be prepared to wake up to a litter of rabbits. In addition to the usual food and water bowls, a pregnant rabbit will need space for its nest and enough room to accommodate all the babies it gives birth to.
Rabbits can have up to 15 babies in a litter so you should be prepared to have space for a lot of rabbits, especially if you don't have homes lined up for them to go to once they are weaned. An easy-to-clean nest box option is a cat litter pan filled with hay or bedding. This can be cleaned as needed if your rabbit uses it as a bathroom before the babies being born and also after the babies leave the nest. Some people use other plastic containers with a side cut out of it so the rabbit can quickly get in and out, while others make wooden boxes, but these are not as easy to clean.
The nest box should be placed within the rabbit's enclosure. A large cage or exercise pen is a good option for housing a pregnant rabbit. These will ensure that the pregnant rabbit uses the nesting box you have provided and it will make it easier for you to monitor the babies that are born if they are all in this one area. Pregnant and nursing rabbits will consume more food since they are feeding both themselves and their growing babies.
Because of this, the number of fresh vegetables that are offered should be increased, and alfalfa hay should be provided at all times. Make a gradual switch from the grass hays that an adult rabbit usually eats to the alfalfa to avoid any soft stools. You can do this by gradually mixing the two hays until you've completely switched over. Freshwater, ideally in a bowl, should also be offered as usual.
Most baby rabbits will require no assistance from a human. Baby rabbits will nurse from their mothers once or twice a day, for four to five weeks until they are weaned. In the unlikely event that you need to intervene and help a domestic baby rabbit , the special formula should be purchased to use for bottle feeding. You should attempt to reintroduce the baby to the mother after a few days of bottle feeding since some new mothers do not have adequate milk production until a few days after giving birth.
Some rabbits experience a false pregnancy where their body thinks it's pregnant, despite that not being the case.
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