Doe refuses to be bred....

Hey y'all. I know this question probably gets asked a lot of I've read everything I can find but I'm at my wits end.

We just bought our first rabbits about 45 days ago. A bred Dutch doe, a Californian buck and doe. I really don't know the age of the Californians.... The breeder was an older gentleman who is sick and selling out. He first told me the Cali doe was "a little over a year old" and had had one litter. Then he said she was "probably 2" and before we left he said she was "probably 2.5". :roll: Regardless, she is full grown but doesn't look old. My daughter showed her to the junior rabbit show a couple weeks ago at our county fair and won 1st place in the senior California doe class, so we are pretty proud of her.

After the county fair we gave her a few days to rest and began trying to breed her to our California buck. She ran around his cage, he chased and tried but she kept backing into a corner. After 5-7 minutes it was obvious it wasn't going to work. We repeated the process daily with pretty much the same results. 2-3 times he has been able to mount her (against her will) and he's given it all he can but she hasn't lifted and he's never fell off. Eventually we tried a little apple cider vinegar in her water (admittedly not more than 1-2 days) and we even tried swapping their cages for a night. We are on about 9 and nothing is working. Now she fights and scratches and paws me when I try to take her to his cage and she does nothing but run circles around the buck like crazy and try to hide in a corner. At this point the buck seems to have lost interest and I can barely even get him to try to mount her. If he chases her, it's not for more than 10-15 seconds and honestly, he's wasting his time because she backs into a corner and there is nothing he can do.

I'm at the point of being ready to take this blue ribbon winner and making rabbit dumplings. And yes I'm serious. I think all 3 of us are worn out but I'm not sure what else to do. Is there such a thing as a doe who really won't allow herself to ever be bred? I don't believe the rabbit breeder tried to dupe us because he has some serious health problems and I can tell his memory is failing. I'm at my whits end and this is the perfect weather for me to be breeding, so I don't really want to waste a month or two only to find out this doe will never breed.

Thoughts? Suggestions? Any experiences similar to this?

Thanks for the help.

You don't need to give her a few days to rest after the show - the change in environment and smell of other rabbits make her extremely receptive around show time. I've had a few does that just refuse to lift. If you need to you can physically pick up her rump so the buck can get to her - will not make her happy at all, but hopefully that will give her the idea. If you did that and the buck fell off, I'd try to breed again about 6 hours later, because while she won't be as receptive if you're forcing her to lift, the act of mating can make her more receptive. When I'm breeding inexperienced does, I hold their head and shoulders in place so they can't shove their butt into a corner.

You can also try to switch their cages for a while (so she gets the smell of a buck in her), table breeding (just place her on a table, hold her in place, and put the buck on her), or just put them together in an exercise pen and leave them alone for a bit (by alone, I mean watching them still, just not messing with them unless it gets dangerous)

Thank you very much for the reply and suggestions. I should have added that I have sort of tried to forced breeding with no success. I attempted to hold the doe while lifting her rear for the buck and she went absolutely nuts and I seriously thought she might break her neck or something else because of her thrashing. She doesn't like to be picked up at all and a tight grip on her scruff and a very high tolerance to the pain of her scratching and pawing is required to hold her. At 8.5lbs she's extremely strong. I'm willing to try the forced breeding again, but when I take her to the buck's cage she goes nuts, for lack of a better term. When it comes to trying the forced breeding again, I'm not sure I can physically control her and not have her injure herself but I'm willing to try because I'm at the point, I don't know what else to do.

Thank you again for the reply.

i've been in the same boat, except i started with my rabbits in march and still have no kits. they just flat-out refused, every single doe. as of a couple months ago i finally got some breedings, but the boys have been heat sterile so ...still no kits. got a couple due this weekend so fingers crossed SOMEONE is going to kindle ;P


what seems to be the winning combo for me has been:

- ACV in the water. i can't say whether or not it's really a factor, but i know many people have good results and it is a good health boost if nothing else
- breed early in the morning. it's much cooler and rabbits are crepuscular so they're more active in the morning and evening. here it tends to still be warm in the evening, so i do mornings.
- try breeding on grass. i have a couple expens that i set up in the yard and plop em in. the does seem to panic less as they can easily escape the buck if the want to, and the grass gets them frisky. i've had does that refuse in a cage lift sky high as soon as i move them to the expen.
- cage swaps overnight. you said you've done it, but maybe leaving them a couple days would work better. it worked for me for one stubborn doe of mine. a night in his house and the next morning she was raring to go ;P


i'd give her the ACV for a week or so then put them in a pen to breed. hopefully she'll have disassociated you with being moved and brought to his cage and will be calmer too. sometimes they're just stubborn and need encouragement.

Sometimes they also won't breed for lack of vitamins A and E. I feed mine spinach every day for a week before breeding as it contains both.
:good-luck:

I have had rabbits for a bit over 2 years. I've never had problems breeding...till this fall. Even after last summer with the extreme heat the does were at least willing even if the bucks were heat sterile. I finally realized I had swapped to a cheaper pellet over the summer and that was the only change I had made. So much for trying to save money on feed. At least I hope that is the cause. I have one bag of the cheaper stuff left than it's back to the high dollar feed at least for a while to see if it helps.

I think I may pick up some spinach in the mean time. How much do you feed them Fluffy?

Oh boy, do I ever feel your pain with this one...

I've tried ACV (which worked wonderfully for one of my does, within a few days she was lifting sky high, but only produced one kit that didn't make it.. sigh). I find mine will not breed in the cages regardless, I need to use my ex pen, I have swapped all mine around I haven't had kits in months, just picked up a new buck because I suspected the buck was the issue (bred him to ALL 6 does and NOONE took), but since then they still aren't producing so it likely wasn't his problem.

Freaking rabbits.. LOL!

There are more tricks to get a reluctant doe bred than you can shake a stick at.

These threads have lots of good suggestions:
judging-a-doe-s-readiness-and-breeding-tips-t9869.html

i-ve-heard-boss-will-help-get-does-in-the-mood-t30882.html

If you still can't find a solution, try reading older posts on the subject. You'll find all kinds of ideas, from taking the doe for a car ride to serving her Celestial Seasons Red Raspberry Zinger tea for a few days. Some people swear by it and it may be that the herbs have an effect.

Don't give up and do update this thread to tell us what eventually works.

I don't know if this is an appropriate response in this thread but I just wondered how common this problem is. We didn't start with expensive rabbits from breeders who had a good reputation--just with what we could find that looked healthy and well built as far as we were able to judge. We didn't feed pellets at all and have varied the natural feed through the seasons and over time. We used ACV in the water briefly. And breeding just hasn't been a problem. It often doesn't look classic--sometimes no life, sometimes no fall-off, often just one cover but sometimes 2. And there was just once that we thought the doe could have been bred and no kits were produced. Have had some runts in big litters but no huge single kits.
So I wondered if failure to breed is common or if I just keep seeing it come up in threads because when it does happen it makes all other questions about raising rabbits irrelevant. Maybe when it works, after the first few times, we don't bother to post about it or put pix on the litters thread?

Rainey":haqe2nn7 said:

I don't know if this is an appropriate response in this thread but I just wondered how common this problem is. We didn't start with expensive rabbits from breeders who had a good reputation--just with what we could find that looked healthy and well built as far as we were able to judge. We didn't feed pellets at all and have varied the natural feed through the seasons and over time. We used ACV in the water briefly. And breeding just hasn't been a problem. It often doesn't look classic--sometimes no life, sometimes no fall-off, often just one cover but sometimes 2. And there was just once that we thought the doe could have been bred and no kits were produced. Have had some runts in big litters but no huge single kits.
So I wondered if failure to breed is common or if I just keep seeing it come up in threads because when it does happen it makes all other questions about raising rabbits irrelevant. Maybe when it works, after the first few times, we don't bother to post about it or put pix on the litters thread?

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My personal experience is that meat mutts breed easily and that natural feed helps.

In my experience, the younger rabbits are easy to get breeding - it's the old virgin does that hate the bucks. With show rabbits, I like to get them grand championed before I breed them, so this might be a year, year and a half before their first breeding, but with meat rabbits, they are usually already bred before then. Some breeds are less willing to breed than others - himalayans don't have a super strong sex drive like Holland lops and other small breeds (I can put a buck and doe in the same cage with a bowl of food, and they won't even notice each other until they finish eating and look up, for example). Californians in general should be fairly easy to get to breed compared to them.

alforddm":1qn36420 said:

I think I may pick up some spinach in the mean time. How much do you feed them Fluffy?

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My rabbits are 3-4 pounds, I give them a large handful as their greens for the day.

Thank you for all the replies and suggestions! I've added apple cider vinegar to her water jug now, so she is getting it with every drink. We will see if that helps. I never thought about putting them out on the grass to see what would happen. I'll have rig up some sort of a little temporary pen but I can make it happen. I sort of figured they'd just get out in the grass and be totally preoccupied with the grass, dirt, new surroundings etc. At this point, I'm willing to try anything.

I will also try some greens and see if that will help. I think this doe is just stubborn. She exhibits a lot of other stubborn traits that make me just scratch my head. I should have mentioned it but these rabbits are all meet rabbits and with our East Texas heat, I really want to push out the litters during these cool months because I know I won't be able to breed them once it warms back up.

Thanks again and I will update as soon as I (hopefully) have success.