information on breeding

The picture is of one of the 13hour old baby Dwarf Lop which is now 8 days old


female rabbits can breed at the age of 5months
Male rabbits can breed at the age of 6months
it is in your best option to breed rabbits before they are a year old because if they have them at an older age they may have trouble giving birth(kindling)and they may not no what to do with the baby's although even if they get breaded before they are a year old once they are born they still may not no what to do the first kits are not always successful yet the 2Nd are more reliable to survive.

no matter what people tell you, you can breed whichever breed of rabbits you have, i have Holland lops and netherland dwarfs and they have successfully mated and had kits which survived! but if you are not willing to keep all the baby's before you mate them, you will want to find homes for them all before hand or you can sell them to a pet shop but you mustn't take your baby rabbits away from the mother until they are at least 7 weeks old! because these 7 weeks are very crucial on their development.

If either rabbits have diarrhea do NOT breed! and check both the genitals of the rabbits for infection such as extreme redness, scabs, sores and discharge. if any are visible do not breed!!

when they are ready to breed, take the doe to the bucks cage NEVER take the buck to the doe cage because the female may get aggressive because they are Territorial! and the male will be too busy sniffing around the new environment where as females wont bother sniffing around.

if you wish you may leave them together over night but they may fight because the male will just carry on trying to mate whilst the female is trying to relax and the female may get moody and start a fight so the male will hopefully leave her alone but this does not always work and could end up in a bloody mess.
I personally let them mate then remove the female and within an hour to 12 hours i again place the female back with the buck this improves the likely hood of pregnancy and it could increase the number of kits born.

keep a calendar and mark the days which you mated the rabbits then count forward 28-32days and that is when the baby's shall be born also a nesting box is very useful to be placed into the females hutch at least on the 27Th day so the mum-to-be can build her nest in their, a nesting box is very very useful although people advise a wooden one i personally just use a small sized sandwich box and i line it myself by cutting a pillow case to fit into the box and then once the mother has started to pull fur from herself i put it into the box and once the baby's have been born I'll place them into the box and place the box some were in the hutch.

Facts!
1. People say not to handle the kits because the mother will abandon them this is NOT true, if the mother trusts you and knows your scent she will let you handle them! i have ALWAYS handled the kits and i have been a rabbit breeder for 6 years! yet the same people who say not to handle the kits tell you also to check them? how can you possibly check them without touching them??? you cant its impossible i advise you to check the baby's at least twice a day. once when you wake up to see if they have been fed this will be pretty easy to see because there belly's will be very round and the second time during the day to see if the kits are warm enough you may keeping checking their temperature but the mother may get stressed out and may bite.

2. If you are breeding a mixed breed rabbit then you should make sure the male is smaller than the female because if they are the same size or the male is bigger, it will be harder for the female to pass the baby's through because they too will be quite big and this could lead to stillborn baby's or death to the mother whilst kindling this is the reason why i have Netherland Dwarf males and Holland Lop Females