One of the most important questions among those involved in rabbit breeding is: how does the pregnancy of rabbits proceed? The fact is that how successful it will be depends on whether the number of farms increases and how healthy the offspring are. It is also important to know how you can determine if the rabbit is pregnant, how long the pregnancy lasts, how to take birth and what should be the care of the rabbit after the round-up.
Pregnancy in rabbits
In order to properly conduct housekeeping with rabbits, it is important to know the answers to all these questions, only in this case it makes sense to talk about the feasibility of a rabbit business.
Pregnancy definition
The first thing you should pay attention to are signs indicating that the rabbit is pregnant. If the mating ended in failure, the answer to the question why the rabbit does not become pregnant is important. In order to recognize this, you need to try to plant the rabbit again to the male inseminator one week after mating. If she moves away from him, becomes aggressive, then with a high degree of probability it can be argued that the mating was successful and the animal managed to get pregnant.
There is such a thing as a false pregnancy in rabbits, when indirect signs indicate the presence of pregnancy (false), which actually does not exist. There is an opposite situation when the female allows herself to be covered while pregnant. In this case, there is a chance of developing a double pregnancy, which is possible due to the unusual structure of the internal genital organs of rabbits.
There is another method by which you can analyze the direct signs of pregnancy and answer the question of how to find out if the rabbit is pregnant. This method is recommended to be used when at least 14 days have passed after mating. It is necessary to place the rabbit on a flat surface, carefully probe her stomach and examine it. If pregnancy has occurred, then you can feel for the enlarged uterine cavity, as well as balls in which future rabbits develop - this will be an obvious symptom and sign of pregnancy. It is important to carry out all the manipulations very carefully so as not to harm or provoke a miscarriage.
It is recommended to study photo and video lessons on how to determine a rabbit’s pregnancy by examining with palpation, then if the procedure is carried out independently, it will not be difficult to determine whether the eared offspring will bring.
Usually, the nuclei are located symmetrically on the left and on the right and are determined at this time with a diameter of about 2-3 cm. In shape, these formations can be either round or oval, with an external palpation you can feel their soft structure.
How is the pregnancy in rabbits
Depending on the belonging to a particular breed (meat, decorative, and so on), the duration of gestation of rabbits can vary in a smaller or larger direction. However, the average gestation period in rabbits is normally between 29 and 37 days.
Most often, a protracted pregnancy occurs in primiparous females. The duration of the pregnancy will also vary depending on how many rabbits are in the female’s womb. If there are more than usual, then most likely they will be born a little earlier. Moreover, the size and weight of newborn fluffies will be larger than with normal fencing.
In order for the birth to be successful, it is forbidden to expose them to stress during pregnancy in rabbits. This includes even minimal human intervention: it is recommended not to take the female in her arms, go into the aviary less, and so on. This is because rabbits are classified as shy animals, and in a pregnant female rabbit shyness increases several times. If the rabbit experiences stress, it can provoke not only a miscarriage or premature birth, but even the death of the animal. So if the future mom looks scared, you need to identify and eliminate the cause.
To create the most comfortable conditions for the female, you can purchase special cells - mother liquors. How do they differ from ordinary cells?
- The walls in them are made of a more dense material, which guarantees good sound insulation for the entire time the rabbit is.
- The entrance to the rabbit’s dwelling is only one and rather narrow, resembles burrows that eared dig in the natural habitat.
You need to properly prepare for the appearance of newborn rabbits. To do this, add the flooring in the form of hay to the rabbit house, as well as prepare additional boxes where the rabbit can keep her kids.
How are the births of rabbits
Usually, the okrol takes place at night, its duration on average is from 15 minutes to one hour. It depends on how numerous the litter is and whether the female gave birth before. If the delivery is delayed for a longer period, this is an occasion to worry and call a veterinarian at home.
After the rounding, an average of 9 rabbits are born, although there are cases of the birth of only one rabbit or a whole horde.
After all the rabbits have left the mother’s womb, the last should leave, which must be left to the woman in labor for eating. Its chemical composition contains many vitamins and minerals, which the female so needs.
After eating the afterbirth, the rabbit takes care of its babies: licks each and carefully transfers it to the newly made nest, which she herself made the day before from the litter and her own fluff from the abdomen.
This is a description of the standard stroke, if it is not complicated by anything.
Possible problems after okrolya
A deviation from the norm is a situation where the rabbit did not make a nest and did not drag the rabbits there. Then the farmer needs to immediately pull it out of the mother liquor and make a nest on its own. In this case, you need rabbit fluff - you should pluck it yourself from the female’s abdomen. Nest for rabbits will also have to do on their own. After everything is ready, you can return the female to the cage to the babies. In this case, all manipulations must be carried out strictly with gloves.
If even after this the maternal instinct does not appear, you can try the second option. Sometimes the mating carried out at such a moment awakens maternal instincts in the rabbit - she begins to take care of the pussies again and feeds them milk. Even if this feeding is not constant, you can plant rabbits several times a day for feeding, then carry them back to the cage, while providing them with sufficient heat using heating pads.
If none of the above options works, you can distribute the babies to other nursing females. However, you need to choose those females who have a calm disposition and good behavior. This is important, as there is a chance that the kids will be bitten. It is recommended to put them on the first feeding and check how successfully replanting occurred, watching how the adoptive mother behaves. It is believed that she will finally accept them when the smell of the biological mother disappears completely.
Why is the rabbit eating her cubs
Everyone probably heard about cannibalism among rabbits. Among the most common causes of this behavior are the following:
- physiological pathologies;
- insufficient nutrition of the female or a sharp transition from one type of food to another;
- water shortage throughout the rabbit's pregnancy;
- a long and complex process of childbirth;
- false pregnancy in rabbits the day before;
- nipple injuries.
Injuries to the nipples give the female considerable discomfort. Upon examination, you can find bloody marks, scratches and even marks from teeth, to the touch the skin around becomes hard and loses elasticity.
Most often, rabbits inflict nipple injuries, eagerly trying to get enough of mother's milk as quickly as possible. However, there is another reason: milk appeared too early, even before birth, rabbits. By the time of birth, the breast is filled with milk, the nipples become rough and when the offspring is fed, the female experiences incredible pain.
How is the postpartum period
After the female reproduced all the rabbits, it is necessary to dispose of those babies who were born dead, and also to analyze the condition of all living things. If there are weak individuals in the litter, then they should be monitored more closely. Usually, a week after birth, they have to be moved to a separate cage, where people are already nursing them. Or they are laid with another lactating rabbit. The fact is that there is a natural selection: the rabbit can get rid of weak young ones by eating them.
If you decide to plant rabbits for another female, you should choose the most calm one so that she accepts other cubs and does not treat them aggressively. If there are no other nursing mothers among rabbits, you should not try to replace mother's milk with cow or goat milk: its composition does not allow you to become a full replacement of the diet. There is only one option left - this is the artificial feeding of babies with the help of infant formula, which women buy for their children.
To prepare the formula for feeding, you will need room temperature water and infant formula for the smallest in dry form. Meals must be prepared according to the instructions on the packaging, after which it is advisable to feed the babies with it. For feeding, you need a bottle with a pacifier: so a little rabbit will just need to drink its contents. In the first 2 weeks it will be necessary to feed the cubs twice a day, after which they begin to gradually accustom him to adult food. At one time, a small rabbit drinks an average of about 40 ml of the mixture.
When you can drop the cubs from the mother
If the rabbit responsibly feeds her cubs and takes good care of them, sooner or later the question will arise when they need to put the rabbits away from her and when she will be ready for the next round.
If the rabbits have no deviations in physical development, it is not worth it to carry out a jigging earlier than one month: this makes no sense. Usually by this time the rabbit stops feeding them milk, and the animals are ready for the transition to an adult diet. By this time, the weight of one month old baby is about 700 g.
As for the cultivation of broiler rabbits (grown for meat), then the mating from the mother is carried out later: not earlier than two months. Moreover, their average weight is 1.5 kg. After weaning the broiler young from the mother, it is necessary to sort carefully by sex and weight and, based on the results obtained, resettle the animals into cages.
As for the answer to the question, when will the female be ready for the next mating, the figure may vary. It is worth starting from the fact that the norm is considered to be about 4-6 scouts per calendar year, exceeding this figure is extremely undesirable, otherwise it will negatively affect both the rabbit’s health and the quality of the offspring.
