Mating season

We're hoping a month from now the weather will be pretty nice.  At least not freezing.  And as long as it's not freezing, that means baby bunnies can survive.  That of course, means we need to mate our does and buck to make little babies.

As with most of our homesteading adventures, we turn to a book.  Storey's Guide to Raising Rabbits contains everything one needs to know about rabbits, including how to breed them.  Turns out, it's quite simple!

Saturday morning, Dan took doe Bunny #1 and put her in with our Buck (Jasper).  Jasper immediately knew what to do.  He started chasing her round and round.  Dan watched their dance for a bit and came back inside.  It wasn't until later that he told me he put them together.  Holy cow!  He mated the rabbits without telling me!?!  Sheesh.  I stormed around the house getting my coat, scarf, hat, gloves, etc and went out to see what's going on.  Jasper started chasing again, mounted for a few seconds and then fell over.  I guess with this being his first time, he wasn't sure what to do. I went back inside and read the book again.  Sure enough it says "don't blink or you'll miss it" and "when the buck is 'done' he will fall over on his side".  Holy cow again!  They did mate while I was out there, I just didn't realize it.  I read this to Dan and he said 'he did that while I was out there too!'.  Apparently Jasper DOES know what he's doing.  Now I call him Stud Muffin.

We kept reading the book and it says that 8-10 hours after the first mating session that we should put them back together to mate again to increase her chances of fertility.  So, we'll put them together around 6pm tonight.

Here is Jasper (aka Stud Muffin)...

And here are our does.  Bunny #1 is the one on the far right...