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New Bunnie on the block

Hi:wave:, just thought I would drop in and say hello. I have 4 Netherland Dwarf bunnies, 2 boys and 2 girls. We are hoping to breed them in a few months, but if they dont breed then it doesnt matter, we love them anyway. Oscar is almost 5 mths old, Fudge(female) is 13 weeks old and Emma and Frankie are both 9 weeks. I would be grateful for any advice about breeding and rearing kitts.Hope to chat soon.
 
You have to be really careful with breeding as it can easily get out of control, plus if you breed your buns too young it put's their health at risk and you could end up losing the mum. I'd wait till the doe is at least 6 months old, preferably closer to the one year mark.
What will you do with the babies? Keep them or sell them/give them away? If you're not planning on keeping the babies then will you be able to find good homes for them in advance. It's just there are a lot of unwanted bunnies out there, you don't want to add to that number. Plus anyone who takes one of the babies could have rescued a rabbit from a shelter instead.

Are your bunnies proven thoroughbreds? I can understand breeding to contribute to a specific breed if your bunnies are excellent breed standards, or to keep your bunny family going (ie. keeping all the babies or the vast majority). But please don't breed because it sounds fun/interesting, or worst of all to make a profit.

I'd wait and make sure you can handle the 4 bunnies as it is, wait till the does are around the 1 year mark before breeding. Make sure you have room and the funds to support 24 plus rabbits (2 litters of 10 from each pair is quite possible). And make sure you do lots of research before hand if you do decide to breed, it's not a walk in the park especially if the mother rejects the kits or you end up with still borns, runts, litters too large for mum to handle and canabalism. Good luck.

And welcome to the forums, I'm a newbie too! :wave:
 
Please don't breed them. There are THOUSANDS of bunnies in rescues needing forever homes ... please don't add to the problem :(
 
Please don't breed. Why not get them neutered so they can all live happily together?

There are over 33,000 rabbits in rescue all over the country. No more need to be bred from.
 
Breeding

After reading all these replies I think I will get my bunnies neutered. I have no wish to add to animal suffering of any kind and I love my babies too much for that....hubby thinks I'm nuts anyway at having 4 of them. I keep all 4 indoors in seperate indoor hutches, although they can all see each other, so hopefully once they are neutered they can all live together:D
 
Hi there :wave:

Im glad you have listened to what others have said about breeding. I run a rescue which works specifically with rabbits and this last year we have taken in 91 unwanted and abandoned bunnies. Roughly 20 of these were young babies that could not be sold by there breeders or even given away for free.

10 were netherland dwarfs.

Sadly the supply of rabbits easily excedes the demand and its a sad world we live in where thousands are PTS every year because they are not lucky enough to find a rescue place or even better a forever home.

Thank you for not adding to the problem.

Sooz
 
welcome to the forum :wave: I am a huge nethie fan - they are adorable and I'm so glad you've decided not to breed as there seems to be loads sadly stuck in rescue with no-one to love them :(

following on from a post somebody else made - her vet 'forgot' to tell her that boys are fertile for a few weeks AFTER neutering too - so even though her boy had the snip, she now has a litter to part with - be warned!
 
hi welcome to the forum :wave: hope you dont mind me asking but where abouts in the Northeast are you from? :) you'll have to post pictures of your beautiful babies for us all to aww over :love:

xxx
 
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