I have a lot of people who ask, “how can you tell a doe is pregnant?” We do this by palpating. Palpating a doe may take you awhile to catch on to or even learn how to successfully palpate an animal correctly. Palpating is extremely hard to do on rabbits who have a lot of fat. 11-14 days gestation is ideal of when to palpate a doe but you can palpate an animal a week before they are due to tell rather or not they need to go back into breeding again. Palpating at a later stage is obviously a lot more easier to do as the babies are of size by then. At 11-14 days, the eggs will feel like tiny marbles or peas. I place the doe in front of me, facing me and using both hands, feel her abdomen. You want to find your own fingers first through the doe's body then you will feel a small lump pass between your fingers, that's when you located a kit. If you do not feel any small lumps, it's safe to say your doe probably didn't take at which case, you can go ahead and rebreed your doe. Do not be afraid to squeeze a little as it is very hard to hurt the eggs at this stage.
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Breeding Rabbits: Table Breeding vs Cage Breeding.
When breeding rabbits, there is two techniques that can be used: Table Breeding and Cage Breeding. Both have their own benefits when trying to mate two rabbits together. I personally prefer cage breeding that way I can breed multiple animals together without having to monitor rabbits on a table setting however, sometimes table breeding is required when breeding certain animals. When should you utilize table breeding? I will table breed when my does are more aggressive towards the buck than I prefer meaning that the doe is attacking the buck. In order to avoid injury, I will assist in a breeding by putting both rabbits on a table and closely monitoring the animals. Usually I have to also assist in holding the doe in place to make sure she does not strike out towards the buck or causes injury. With some breeds, you will notice more breeders use this method with the high energy animals or aggressive breeders. Cage Breeding Always, and I mean absolutely always place the doe in the bucks cage. If you notice that after 30 minutes or so that your doe is not being receptive to the buck, simply remove her and try again an hour later. If the doe is still not receptive, I will try her again the next day. Be sure to write the days down for all matings you do rather or not you witness a fall off. There is a lot of misconceptions that line breeding is the same as inbreeding and that is incorrect. When breeding rabbits, you need to do a lot of line breeding in order to set the desired traits you want in your herd.
What is line breeding? Line breeding is the carefully selected process of breeding closely related animals in order to improve individual traits in your rabbits. All great lines start with only a few rabbits. A breeder will then breed the rabbits together and keep the best offspring; that offspring then gets bred back to the parents or grandparents and so on, always selecting the best matches and only keeping the best animals out of the crossing. Eventually rabbits become distantly related as the original animals are no longer viewed on the pedigree. Once a breeder selects a nice buck from their lines and rebreeds that buck to all their does, the line breeding then begins again. Line breeding is an excellent tool to use in breeding programs because it is all about consistency. If you wanting a breeding program that will have long-term success, line breeding is the way to go. Rabbits do carry recessive traits such as color, fur, type and condition, with these traits, they can carry both good and bad. Eventually you will have the good and bad traits surface in which case, you will cull the rabbits with the bad traits from your program, only keeping the rabbits with the ideal traits. Ideally, you will be able to produce consistent animals without any surprises in your litters. You will also learn how to correctly judge your animals at an early stage to decide which are keepers and which are not. When line breeding, be sure to keep going forward in your program and not backwards. Do not sacrifice one trait to get another as this will back fire. What I mean by this is if you already have an animal with a solid hindquarter but thin ears, don't keep an animal back that has a terrible hindquarter but decent ears, don't become barn blind. If you have another friend that is a breeder, it would be a good idea to ask them for their thoughts on animals as well. When to utilize an outcross. Outcrossing can be beneficial to help bring in a certain trait you are lacking in that your current program is failing to fix. When selecting an outcross, be sure to select an animal that has generations of the correct trait that you wish to correct on your own animals. When you first outcross, it is okay to be disappointed as their traits may clash with yours. I suggest taking the best F1 rabbit and breeding back to your line, you should be able to then see results in the F2 kits. What is inbreeding? Inbreeding is when you breed brother to sister. This also has it's benefits for locking in the desired traits that you want however you will need to cull heavily as this can also lock in the bad traits as well. If I do this sort of breeding myself, I will not breed the kits to another closely related animal as you do not want too much inbreeding going on in your program. I have had the most success with half brothers and half sisters pairing however again, you must realize that I would only ever mate two rabbits that are the best matches and crosses faults. |
AuthorBrittany is an Open A.R.B.A. exhibitor that raises and shows Pedigreed Holland Lops and Netherland Dwarfs. She started breeding rabbits in 2002 and American Cavies in 2005. Archives
June 2022
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