Male or female...this is how you tell them apart!

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Great explanation and pictures to go along with it. I can sex most pets, even rat pups on the day they're born, but rabbits have always been tough for me. This was very informative :)
 
Even after all these years I'm terrible at sexing kits. Over the summer I had a litter that I retained one doe from, a gorgeous baby that I wanted to use as a replacement for her mother since mama was getting up in years. That doe grew like mad, and was just lovely. It wasn't until she sat up to get a bit of carrot from me and I saw her beans that I realized I had a Lola on my hands. Walked like a lady but ... yeah. I'm still face palming over that one.
 
Maybe its just me , but it seems all the images in this thread are gone .... Maybe it needs some new ones ?!
 
The OP must have deleted them from her photobucket account.

We will have to take more photos and post them.
 
That would be a help. I have a friend who breeds rabbits for his pet snakes who has offered me a male and female when I am ready and they do not have litters with them. SO in a few weeks. I want to be sure I get one of each gender so I am not stuck with two does or two bucks. He breeds satins cause he likes the size.
 
It's unfortunate that the pictures have been removed. There is still good information in this thread and I think we'll leave it as is fpor the moment, in the hopes that someone can post some replacement pictures.

In the meantime, this site has some pretty good pictures, although you may need to zoom in to see them better.
http://www.rudolphsrabbitranch.com/sexing.htm
 
I just read found this, and am wondering if anyone else here has tried it? Seems crazy, but it's worth a try right? LOL
"Lick your pinky (yes I said lick your pinky!) of the opposite hand and gently tap, stroke the genital area (cool breath helps) til the baby starts peeing. If the stream lets out in a straight stream then it is a male. If it lets out straight but then goes to a heavy drip then it is a doe. Crazy? Well, sounds that way, but I have never had it be wrong."
http://rebeccasrocknrabbitry.weebly.com ... s-old.html
 
I found this thread very helpful. I wish I could find the pictures of the young rabbits showing male and female. The description was close together female-space male. I was going to print the pics out for reference but now the pic are gone. Does anyone know where I could find these?
 
Thank you Michaels4gardens!! These pictures will come in handy over the next couple of days, I have a doe getting ready to kindle. :D
 
Can you tell at almost a week old? I have one whose coloring I love and am thinking about keeping to get more harlequins and tris for pelts as I am doing rabbits for meat and going to play around with the pelts. Should have taken pics on day one, but was so excited to get poppies I didn't even think about it!
Thanks,
Pik
 

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I can't get pictures to post as the kits are wiggly and it takes both of my hands to check, but I decided to give a serious try at sexing our 12-day old bunnies today and it APPEARS that yes, it's possible, at least to a degree.

If I'm correct (and I've come to understand, both through my own mistake and others' that it's very common to be wrong) then I only have 3 bucklings in a litter of 9?? Is that even possible? At least, 3 of them do look like they have a little 'tube' (cheerio) while the others appear to be doelings. It's not critical that I sex them correctly at this age and I will check again on a regular basis, but it's fun to try!!

Ok, I'll admit, the kits aren't THAT wiggly, they're actually being pretty cooperative, but it still takes both hands to expose their little parts. I need another person to snap pictures! lol
 
Syberchick70":2i1h9sbb said:
then I only have 3 bucklings in a litter of 9?? Is that even possible?
Click to expand...

Yes, that's possible. :) It feels a bit counter-intuitive, but the probability of each kit being male or female doesn't depend on how many of the other kits are male or female. I'd think that the sire of the litter would've released enough sperm that there was plenty of chance of each kit being either sex--although technically once a sperm has fertilized an egg, it is out of the running for fertilizing any other eggs. I'm writing this small so that if it's too confusing to think about this small difference, you can just ignore it.

Mathematically, your litter could be:

0 does and 9 bucks
1 doe and 8 bucks
2 does and 7 bucks
3 does and 6 bucks
4 does and 5 bucks
5 does and 4 bucks
6 does and 3 bucks
7 does and 2 bucks
8 does and 1 buck
9 does and 0 bucks

There may be factors that make it more likely for a kit to be one sex than the other, but whether or not that was the case with this litter, each of those options that I listed is possible. Any factors that affect how likely it is for a kit to be a specific sex only changes how likely it is for that to happen; there is still the possibility that the kit will be the less likely sex. And it's also possible that there was a 50/50 chance for each kit in this litter to be a buck, and you just happened to end up with more does than bucks. :) That would be like flipping a coin 9 times, and getting "head" more often than "tails." It happens. :)

I hope that helps! :)
 
That definitely helps! I feel a bit more confident in my assessment now. I just thought there might be a 'high probability' of, generally speaking, more does than bucks, more bucks than does, or 50/50... you know what I mean? Like, if folks said "Oh you usually get 60% bucks" or something. Anyway, I'm not taking it too seriously right now. I do hope to get some pictures up soon to see if folks agree with me. :)
 

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