One of the most important questions among those involved in rabbit breeding is: how does the pregnancy of rabbits proceed? The fact is that it will depend on how successful it will be whether the livestock of the farm will increase and how healthy the offspring will be. It is also important to know how you can determine if a rabbit is pregnant, how long the pregnancy lasts, how to give birth and what should be the care of a rabbit after birth.
Rabbit pregnancy
In order to properly run a house with rabbits, it is important to know the answers to all these questions, only in this case it will make sense to talk about the expediency of a business on rabbits.
Definition of pregnancy
The first thing you should pay attention to is signs indicating that the rabbit is pregnant. If the mating ended in failure, the answer to the question of why the rabbit does not become pregnant is important. In order to recognize this, you need to try again to plant the rabbit to the male inseminator a 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 become 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. The opposite situation also happens, when the female allows herself to be covered while pregnant. In this case, there is a possibility 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 a rabbit is pregnant. This method is recommended when at least 14 days have passed since mating. It is necessary to place the rabbit on a flat surface, gently feel her belly and examine it. If pregnancy has occurred, then you can feel the enlarged uterine cavity, as well as balls in which future rabbits develop - this will be an obvious symptom and a sign of pregnancy. It is important to carry out all manipulations very carefully so as not to harm and not provoke a miscarriage.
It is recommended to study photo and video lessons on how to determine the 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 pregnancy in rabbits
Depending on the affiliation with 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, prolonged 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 pussies will be larger than during normal birth.
In order for the birth to be successful, it is forbidden to expose rabbits to stress during pregnancy. This includes even minimal human intervention: it is recommended not to take the female in your arms, to enter the enclosure less, and so on. This is due to the fact that rabbits belong to the category of fearful animals, and fearfulness in a pregnant female rabbit increases several times. If the rabbit experiences stress, this 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 - queen cells. How are they different from normal cells?
- The walls in them are made of a denser material, which guarantees good sound insulation during the entire stay of the rabbit.
- 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 a flooring in the form of hay to the rabbit house, as well as prepare additional boxes where the rabbit can keep her kids.
How is childbirth in rabbits
Usually okrol takes place at night, its duration is on average 15 minutes to one hour. It depends on how numerous the litter is and whether the female has given 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 birth, an average of up to 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 afterbirth should come out, which must be left to the woman in labor to be eaten. 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.
Succession / pregnancy of the rabbit and successful delivery / rabbits.
How to determine a rabbit’s pregnancy
Rabbit pregnancy period in winter
Determination of pregnancy of a female rabbit
Possible problems after okrolya
A deviation from the norm is a situation when 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 the nest on his own. In this case, you will need rabbit fluff - you should pluck it yourself from the female's abdomen. You will also have to make a nest for rabbits yourself. After everything is ready, you can return the female to the baby's cage. In this case, all manipulations must be carried out strictly with gloves.
If after that the maternal instinct does not manifest itself, you can try the second option. Sometimes a 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 add the rabbits to her for feeding several times a day, then take them back to the cage, while providing them with sufficient warmth with heating pads.
If none of the above options work, you can distribute the babies to other lactating 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 does the rabbit eat her cubs
Everyone probably heard about cannibalism among rabbits. Among the most common reasons for this behavior are the following:
- physiological pathologies;
- insufficient nutrition of the female or a sharp transition from one type of food to another;
- lack of water throughout the rabbit's pregnancy;
- long and difficult labor process;
- false pregnancy in rabbits the day before;
- nipple injuries.
Nipple injuries cause considerable discomfort to the female. On examination, you can find bloody marks, scratches and even teeth marks, to the touch the skin around it becomes hard and loses its elasticity.
Most often, nipple injuries are inflicted on rabbits, eagerly trying to get enough breast milk as quickly as possible. However, there is another reason: milk appeared too early, even before the birth of the 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 closely monitored. Usually, a week after birth, they have to be moved to a separate cage, where a person is already engaged in nursing them. Or they are placed with another lactating rabbit. The fact is that there is natural selection: the rabbit can get rid of weak cubs on her own by eating them.
If the decision is made to add the rabbits to another female, it is worth choosing the calmest one so that she accepts other people's 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's or goat's milk: its composition does not allow it to become a full-fledged replacement for 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. Food must be prepared according to the instructions on the package, after which it is advisable to feed it to babies. For feeding, you will need a bottle with a nipple: so the rabbit will just need to drink its contents. In the first 2 weeks, you will have to deal with feeding 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 can I leave my cubs from my mother?
If a rabbit responsibly feeds her cubs and takes good care of them, sooner or later the question will arise when the babies should be removed from her and when she will be ready for the next round.
If the rabbits do not have deviations in physical development, it is not worth jigging before one month: there is no point in this. 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 calf 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 broiler chicks from their mother, it is necessary to carefully sort by sex and weight and, based on the results obtained, to settle the animals in cages.
As for the answer to the question when the female will be ready for the next mating, the figure may vary. It is worth starting from the fact that about 4-6 births per calendar year is considered the norm, it is extremely undesirable to exceed this figure, otherwise it will negatively affect both the health of the rabbit and the quality of the offspring.