Breeding tips

BREEDING RABBITS [especially the uncooperative ones]
Always introduce the Doe into the buck pen, -never introduce a Buck into the does pen, or into her territory. Doing this wrong will result in a fight, and possibly a damaged, or castrated buck
.To further improve breeding success, conception rates, size of litters, and reduce the possibility of fighting-
Look at the color of the inside of the does vulva. If it is dark purple she is in the most fertile part of her cycle, and very likely to want to breed. If it is light pink, she is in the least fertile part of her cycle. - barely red streaked, or tinged she is in between the two extremes. Does can conceive in any part of their cycle. However, to save both you and the doe extra aggravation. Breed in the "purple" part of her cycle. This is especially true ,when you are attempting to get a difficult doe to breed. When a buck ejaculates, his hind quarters convulse in toward the doe, improving penetration, then he continues to fall backward, usually rolling onto his back. ie: the "fall off".-sometimes the buck "squeals" after or during a successful ejaculation.
Second mountings [breeding's] can improve conception rates. and breeding to another buck right after the first breeding can greatly improve conception rates, The sperm sense the presence of another bucks semen, and they have a competition factor that improves sperm motility.
Avoid extra handling of the doe, and any extra excitement for the first few days after breeding , give the doe time for the fertilized eggs to "attach" inside her uterus .before "messing" with her.
Breed does after they are fully mature- does will breed before being mature, but the productive longevity of does bred early will be less. [different breeds, and different genetics within a breed, will have a different age to maturity]

i think think the best thing you can do is put the couple in a run for breeding. The best think that i got was a book my father gave me called "the rabbit raising problem solver"

Great tips. I would add one more: stay and watch while the rabbits are together, and be prepared to remove the does at the first sign of trouble.

I have had excellent luck with checking that readiness window and breeding during the dark red/purple time frame, and putting them on the ground in an exercise pen. I have never had one refuse doing those 2 things. They need to be getting good overall nutrition and be in good overall health to start with, I think thats usually assumed.

Also check the condition of the rabbit. They should be healthy and not too skinny yet not too fat.

We had a lot of problems with conception and it turned out it was Vent disease. We have a more or less closed herd but figured it must have been brought in from when we'd fostered someone's orphaned baby bunny quite a few years ago. If you have outside rabbits coming into your herd and lack of litters showing up from known matings, then it could be Vent disease. It took a herd wide penicillin treatment to fix it, but I'm pretty sure it's fixed now since we're starting to see baby buns again. However, litter size is still way down so there may have been damage done while they had the disease.

The current few babies were from matings while the treatment was going on, on the 23rd of next month we will (hopefully) have the first litters from matings since the treatment was finished. It was five weeks of a penicillin shot once a week, so we wanted to see at what point the penicillin took effect. The matings in the first week of treatment didn't seem to work. The one in the second week of treatment had a very small litter with still borns. Four babies, but only two live ones. The one in the third week of the treatment had a small litter with only one still born so it was four babies with one still born. The upcoming litters (if they show up) will be after the treatments were finished, so it will be interesting to see if the litters show up and how many and if there's still borns.

As for the actual mating itself, if a doe is reluctant, sometimes she just doesn't like the particular buck. One of the does bred last week just wouldn't rise for the first buck we tried, but she must have really liked the next one since mating took all of about five seconds.