Question about buck in colony and breeding

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dangerbunny

dangerbunny

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I was reading something that discouraged against exposing the doe to a buck two weeks after the initial mating, basically as a preg check because it could cause the doe to reabsorb her litter, or some such. I was wondering how that worked in a colony setting where the buck and does are together all the time, any insights?
 
My bucks never bred in a colony, had to remove the doe to be bred to a different, caged buck. Have two colonies right now, test pair and the dinner rabbits. After the first day or two of being introduced, the bucks have fully stopped attempting to breed. They know the does wont let them, they don't bother.
There seems to be a ton we don't know about rabbits. It might be possible for them to delay a pregnancy, to store sperm like some animals do, easy for them to reabsorb or terminate a litter at any point.
Poor nutrition or hidden illnesses do cause them to not get pregnant, absorb or abort or even produce smaller and runty litters.

I don't see how a new breeding would cause a doe to absorb any current that's growing, though. Secondary pregnancy seems to be possible.
 
According to this study, does will willingly "breed" at certain stages of pregnancy:

In most mammals the progesterone secreted during gestation inhibits oestrus and the pregnant female refuses to mate, but a pregnant doe may accept mating throughout the gestation period. Indeed, in the second half of pregnancy this is the most common behaviour (Figure 10).

A breeder cannot therefore use the sexual behaviour of does as an indication of pregnancy. Mating occurring during gestation has no dire consequences for the embryos. Unlike the phenomenon observed in the female hare, superfoetation (two simultaneous pregnancies at two different stages of development) never occurs in rabbits.

http://www.fao.org/docrep/t1690E/t1690e05.htm
 
interesting article. I've always caged my bucks and brought does to them . I have a young buck whom I am having trouble with and was considering trying him in a colony to see if he can't get his ducks in a row, so to speak.

after rereading the article I think secondary pregnancy was the issue mentioned. https://www.arba.net/PDFs/palpation.pdf
 
The bucks give up after a few days of getting everyone pregnant. They don't even bother trying. Bucks who don't stop get beat up and must be removed.
 
Attempting to keep Kori in with the ladies. I've seen him try a couple of times now the past days, I don't know what they do when I'm not there. I hope that there won't be any pregnancies (or rather, not too many), it would be great if I had to take them both out in a cage to breed. That however works - while I havn't seen the does accpt him in the colony and he seemed to stop trying, once they meet in a cage they get it done.

I had a period whee my does wouldn't take so I kept breeding them every second week.. got the advice to stop that and they got preggers at once. I believe the constant breeding made them absorb fetuses (it's possible), but it could be something unrelated that caused it as well.
I wonder if Spira will have kits in a week or two - she lives with Kori, and they have bred in a cage, but not - as far as I've seen - in the colony.
 
Rebreeding every 2 weeks is not often. Many put the doe back in with the buck a couple days later to see if she'll accept him and keep doing that every day or 2 until they see good breedings and the doe stops standing for the buck. They have no trouble with reabsorbed litters and double breeding are rare. Although I did have one happen. The doe was bred to a same breed buck and then a week later put in colony with a different breed buck. Being mini rex it was quite obvious there were 2 fathers and 2 litters when she had both rex coated and nonrex coated offspring. No way to make a mistake since she was the only broken and there were both broken rex and broken large fluffy floppy eared things. Personally when not colony breeding once I get 2 or 3 good breedings by the buck on the same day I just wait the 31 days to find out if it was successful.
 

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