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Care Behaviour Have questions or comments? |
Unwanted Litters: Know The Facts Female rabbits do not come into heat in the same way dogs do. They are able to become pregnant at any time. Rabbits can have a litter every 31 DAYS. The female can get pregnant the day after giving birth if not separated from an male. Male rabbits are still fertile up to a month after being neutered and should remain separated from unaltered female rabbits during this time. Often people will decide to get two litter mates, supposedly of the same sex, so that their new pet will have company. However, it is extremely difficult to accurately determine the gender of young rabbits until the males testicles descend at 14 weeks. Many times the unsuspecting owners will actually have two rabbits of the opposite sex. Within months, they will have experienced an overwhelming population explosion, which results in the offspring being 'set free' or dumped because the owners do not know what else to do. Please note that house rabbits are domestic prey animals who have no natural instincts of how to care for themselves in the wild. They are easy targets for cats, dogs and wildlife and are unable to distinguish between safe and toxic plants. Most will die shortly after being released. This sad scenario is easily avoided by having your pets spayed and neutered. You should only trust an experienced rabbit vet to assess the gender of young rabbits. But, there are times when even they have difficulty until the rabbit is older. The best way to ensure that unwanted litters don't occur is to NEVER introduce two unaltered rabbits, no matter what the age. Babies rabbits need to stay with their mother until they are weened at 8 weeks old. Cute little babies may look small but some breeds are able to conceive by 12 weeks old. All siblings should be separated from one another after they have been weened and until they have been accurately sexed and spayed or neutered. Leaving 'baby' siblings together, or trying to separate all the girls from the boys is a mistake that many people make. It only takes one wrongly sexed rabbit to create a number of new litters. DO NOT take this chance. Have your rabbit spayed or neutered. Most vets will wait to perform surgery until the females are 6 months of age, and until the males are 4-5 months of age. Choose a vet that has experience with rabbits and high success rates with spaying and neutering. If your rabbit is over 2 years of age a preliminary exam should be done. Finding homes for unwanted litters is not an easy task, and often leads to more rabbits being surrendered to shelters. For every litter that is produced, a number of shelter rabbits are euthanized because there are simply more rabbits in need of homes than there are homes willing to adopt them. Be a responsible rabbit owner and don't allow your rabbit to have an unwanted litter. Click here for more information on the benefits (health, behaviour and companionship) of having your rabbit spayed or neutered. Read more: |
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