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breeding advice

M

mini-lop123

New Kit
I have 3 mini lops, 2 female and 1 male. The two females are mother and daughter living togethe. What I was wandering was, am I able to breed the mother again even though she is living with her daughter (now 9month old)? Will she look after her babies or will the daughter harm them?

Thanks!
 
mini-lop123 said:
I have 3 mini lops, 2 female and 1 male. The two females are mother and daughter living togethe. What I was wandering was, am I able to breed the mother again even though she is living with her daughter (now 9month old)? Will she look after her babies or will the daughter harm them?

Thanks!
Click to expand...

Hi, I'm pretty sure that the other female will not like the babies being in the same place as her. I'm assuming that you have already bred the mother once? There is no need to breed her over and over again, it does nothing for her...

However, I think you will find that most people here will tend not to give advice regarding breeding, as we try and discourage it here. There are already too many rabbits in rescues to breed more rabbits.
 
As long as they have adequate space they should be fine. Please don't interpret this to mean I agree with planned breeding.
 
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Space will be the main issue - although as the babies get older you will of course need to provide lots of different accommodation to ensure there is no random breeding between siblings, step siblings, mother and sons etc etc

As rabbits are not in 'short supply' (there are c65,000 going through rescue every year after neglect and abandonment and worse) getting a suitable family to take on the very long term commitment of any new arrivals may be difficult.

I would therefore suggest that this is not a route to go down!

If you do not choose to breed the mother you could get mother, daughter and prospective father all neutered and live happily together all the time, and uterine cancer free!!
 
Thanks guys! I am always very careful to sex and separate my bunnies at 8 weeks old. And double check them almost every day to be on the safe side. And I already have good homes for 8 bunnies (before the mother is even pregnant lol!) she usually has around 6-8 kits so it should be easy enough to rehome the young. And if not i am more than happy to keep them. I have lots of space to build bigger hutches if need be, so dont worry about neglect and inbreeding etc. :)

Thanks for your advice and consideration
 
mini-lop123 said:
Thanks guys! I am always very careful to sex and separate my bunnies at 8 weeks old. And double check them almost every day to be on the safe side. And I already have good homes for 8 bunnies (before the mother is even pregnant lol!) she usually has around 6-8 kits so it should be easy enough to rehome the young. And if not i am more than happy to keep them. I have lots of space to build bigger hutches if need be, so dont worry about neglect and inbreeding etc. :)

Thanks for your advice and consideration
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I'm sure you look after your bunnies very well, but I wouldn't recommend anyone to breed, as there are so many rabbits already needing homes in rescues, around 65,000 in the uk, and every rabbit bred means that every rescue rabbit has even less of a chance of getting a loving forever home :cry: there is a sticky on this here http://forums.rabbitrehome.org.uk/showthread.php?424364-Don-t-breed-or-buy-when-rabbits-in-need-still-die
 
mini-lop123 said:
Thanks guys! I am always very careful to sex and separate my bunnies at 8 weeks old. And double check them almost every day to be on the safe side. And I already have good homes for 8 bunnies (before the mother is even pregnant lol!) she usually has around 6-8 kits so it should be easy enough to rehome the young. And if not i am more than happy to keep them. I have lots of space to build bigger hutches if need be, so dont worry about neglect and inbreeding etc. :)

Thanks for your advice and consideration
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I think it's great that you have homes lined up for all the babies, more breeders should think that way!
I don't really have any advice on whether the daughter would be ok or not, I think it depends on the individual animals. You've actually been relatively lucky that the two of them live together peacefully anyway so personally I wouldn't want to risk upsetting the relationship. Does will often become territorial and fight as soon as they reach maturity at around 6 months old.
The only real advice I do have is that ideally you shouldn't breed a doe more than once a year, for her own health, so now is probably a bit soon anyway.

Have you got any photos of your setup? I'm always interested in other peoples housing - so nosy!:oops:
 
Yes I allways make sure I have homes for atleast 4 before I breed. It means that I have the majority of the litter shifted on to new homes asap.. The others I usually only have for a week or two (after they turn 8 weeks) before new homes come available :) I do have pictures but how do I upload them?
 
Can I make a polite plea that you reconsider breeding? You seem very level headed and are obviously doing your research, and have made sure you have homes lined up, which is great - I wish more breeders would do those things.

I was just thinking that if you didn't breed, you could recommend that the homes that you have lined up for the babies instead visit a rescue and adopt a pair of bunnies from there. That way, if the 8 homes you have lined up all adopted a pair of rabbits, 16 bunnies would find nice new homes, which makes space in those rescues for 16 more bunnies in need. If you breed 8 new babies that is adding to the numbers overall. As I think someone mentioned further up the page, there are around 65,000 rabbits in rescue in the UK alone, who are crying out for homes to go to. As a fosterer for a rabbit rescue, I only wish I knew 8 families who wanted to take in some of our rescue rabbits :(
 
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AnnieElms said:
Can I make a polite plea that you reconsider breeding? You seem very level headed and are obviously doing your research, and have made sure you have homes lined up, which is great - I wish more breeders would do those things.

I was just thinking that if you didn't breed, you could recommend that the homes that you have lined up for the babies instead visit a rescue and adopt a pair of bunnies from there. That way, if the 8 homes you have lined up all adopted a pair of rabbits, 16 bunnies would find nice new homes, which makes space in those rescues for 16 more bunnies in need. If you breed 8 new babies that is adding to the numbers overall. As I think someone mentioned further up the page, there are around 65,000 rabbits in rescue in the UK alone, who are crying out for homes to go to. As a fosterer for a rabbit rescue, I only wish I knew 8 families who wanted to take in some of our rescue rabbits :(
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This.
 
I understand your consideration and I am glad there are so many people that care about rescues. However I still feel comfortable breeding rabbits as I know that my rabbits will never end up in rescue shelters, if it comes to a point where their new owners cant look after them I am happy to take them back and either keep them or find new homes. I also take in unwanted animals and find them new homes so i feel that i am doing my bit to help prevent animals being left at shelters :)
 
mini-lop123 said:
I understand your consideration and I am glad there are so many people that care about rescues. However I still feel comfortable breeding rabbits as I know that my rabbits will never end up in rescue shelters, if it comes to a point where their new owners cant look after them I am happy to take them back and either keep them or find new homes. I also take in unwanted animals and find them new homes so i feel that i am doing my bit to help prevent animals being left at shelters :)
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I think the point being made may have been missed. It's not that people believe that your rabbits will end up in shelters, it's the say 8 rabbits you produce means that potentially 16 rescue rabbits (8 pairs) remain in rescue, at risk of PTS due to lack of homes. And that's per litter.
 
Do you do any sort of home checking? So few rabbit owners provide their rabbits with adequate space, a proper diet, companionship and veterinary treatment when needed that I'd personally be more worried about "my" rabbits ending up in a bad home than I would about them ending up in rescues.
Also, just because you offer to take the rabbits back doesn't mean they would always be returned to you - I know a guy who moved out of his house and left his rabbit to starve in it's hutch even though he had breeder backup (we stepped in and saved it once we heard).

Sorry if this comes across as nasty, I just think it's worth thinking about doing home checks if you're not doing them already since it gives your buns the best chance at a good home for life.

What did you decide about breeding the doe?
 
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