Take note: Don't name your rabbits after horrid people

So as many of y'all are aware I'm getting out of American rabbits because they have failed to produce, and those who have produced DIED in childbirth. I only have the one girl left, Cersei, and I was about to process her when my husband went, "Let's try one more time..."

So I'm trying. She's so mean to D'artagnan! It's not getting any nicer either. She's been having some vinegar in her water for the last week, I've been giving them "play dates" where she charges him and pulls out his fur, occasionally allowing him to dry hump her (lol) but ears back and unhappy. Zero lift. Today she bit his ear, poor guy and made him scream! :angry: I've been swapping cages about every other day and nothing.

She was sold to me as a proven doe a year ago so whatcha say, any LAST ditch remedy for a really mean doe? Soft jazz? :x

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hR7aVQFFcks&feature=youtu.be[/youtube]

Poor D'artagnan!

Seems he figured out not to get too close to the front end after a few scuffles, though, eh? Cersei is living up to her name... pity he's not her brother. :twisted:

Other than the soft jazz (or Lionel Richie perhaps?), have you tried table breeding? Not sure I'd want my hands anywhere near her, to be honest, but at least then you'd halfway guarantee D'artagnan access? :?

Actually, some soft music might just help. :lol:

Couldn't hurt anyway. My son David (MidnightCoder) had a pet rabbit when he was a kid. Buffy absolutely swooned for the Righteous Brothers' Unchained Melody. It was pretty funny to watch her hunker down with this sappy expression on her face as she listened to it. :roll:

Nymphadora":3qmt4nfz said:

Cersei is living up to her name... pity he's not her brother. :twisted:

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Oh my goodness Nymph! Bahahahaha :lol: Problem solved!

Nymphadora":3qmt4nfz said:

Other than the soft jazz (or Lionel Richie perhaps?), have you tried table breeding? Not sure I'd want my hands anywhere near her, to be honest, but at least then you'd halfway guarantee D'artagnan access?

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Doi, yeah, I certainly could do table breeding and I have done it before. She's pretty sweet with ME, the bringer of dandelion leaves and mulberry branches, unless I try to pick her up and yeah she's nipped me a few times from that. But for the most part she's not a mean doe with people, just with my sweet boy. Not sure why I didn't think of table breeding myself seeing as I have done it before and it was recently suggested to someone else on here with breeding woes.

MaggieJ":3qmt4nfz said:

Actually, some soft music might just help. :lol:

Couldn't hurt anyway. My son David (MidnightCoder) had a pet rabbit when he was a kid. Buffy absolutely swooned for the Righteous Brothers' Unchained Melody. It was pretty funny to watch her hunker down with this sappy expression on her face as she listened to it. :roll:

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Huh, well, it IS worth a shot. I'll be flabbergasted if I turn on something romantic and they go at it like rabbits. :shock:

Thanks guys! There's a chance I should have put this post in the venting category since I think it was about 50% vent / 50% looking for suggestions, :lol:

2CrazyFools":1g9xdc42 said:

Oh my goodness Nymph! Bahahahaha :lol: Problem solved!

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Always here to help

2CrazyFools":1g9xdc42 said:

She's pretty sweet with ME

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Oh, right, except getting nipped here or there… uh huh…
Jk, I believe you! DH is pretty sweet when I'm making dinner, too. :lol:

2CrazyFools":1g9xdc42 said:

I'll be flabbergasted if I turn on something romantic and they go at it like rabbits.

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Maybe for a Herculean effort such as this, you might want to turn on the tunes when you attempt table breeding, too. You know, to help them relax… :mrgreen:

Have you checked if she's rabbit syphilis positive (vent disease)? Even if she's not activated she could be a carrier, you can tell by seing white markings around her vulva. They look like puss stripes. Carriers tend to be far less fertile, even to basically sterile for males. The markings bother the rabbit when mating making it so the female will strongly dislike mating and the male will hardly have any falloff. Also, new litters from a carrier doe will have a tendencie to have more deaths and surviving kits will often have eye infections.
It could be she's just an alpha female and your buck isnt dominant enough for her, but it's worth checking if you haven't.

That's a great suggestion Kimitsu! However we had a Syphilis incident with a kit (one of my meat mutts, not the Americans) showed up on her face/chin at like 3-4 weeks of age about 2 months ago so I put my entire herd through treatment and quarantine "just in case." I checked everyone down under during this time and no one had any signs besides that one single kit's face.

I have since checked her for vent color this last week (seems a steady dark pink, not ever purple or pale pink, just in between) and then again today when we attempted to -and failed at- table breeding. All clean and clear!

D'artagnan didn't like being up on the table and was too interested in me being there than he was the doe :roll: "Unhand my lady at once you scoundrel!" Oh well, we'll try again tomorrow.

Alright, good that you treated all of yours, since I took in all my rabbits from random places I had the issue myself too so I though it was worth mentionning.
Sounds like she's just dominant and your male just not enough. Do you have another male you could try with? or know someone that could lend you their most dominant male?
I had a female I had to try with 4 different males before one could finally nail her. I'd say at this point the important thing is that she gets pinned down, doesnt matter what breed the buck is. Just get a strong male or several males.
That female that took 4 males, went like this, the cages of the males were next to each other. When we saw one male would give up, we'd switch her to the next male. Going through those 4 males like that it still took like 20mins of steady rotation for one to finally nail her. Notice how males react more when the female is just added then when it's been a while? by rotating like that you force the female to be "new" every time without giving her a break until she finally gives in.

I had to reply to this post when I read about your Cersei. I have a bun named Daenarys and she has turned out to be quiet the mother. She overly mothers her kits and if any other kits around her's or not she will take over as mom! Maybe there is something to it when we name are buns after T.V. characters!

KimitsuKouseki":1a2liubh said:

Alright, good that you treated all of yours, since I took in all my rabbits from random places I had the issue myself too so I though it was worth mentioning.
Sounds like she's just dominant and your male just not enough. Do you have another male you could try with? or know someone that could lend you their most dominant male?
I had a female I had to try with 4 different males before one could finally nail her. I'd say at this point the important thing is that she gets pinned down, doesnt matter what breed the buck is. Just get a strong male or several males.
That female that took 4 males, went like this, the cages of the males were next to each other. When we saw one male would give up, we'd switch her to the next male. Going through those 4 males like that it still took like 20mins of steady rotation for one to finally nail her. Notice how males react more when the female is just added then when it's been a while? by rotating like that you force the female to be "new" every time without giving her a break until she finally gives in.

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I had another male but he wasn't interested in breeding so I polished him off. He had a year to father SOMETHING and we got jack from him so... Now we just have the one young buck who's happy to jump on the ladies. We're reducing the herd right now and waiting on a breeder in my area to have some standard Rex rabbits that will fit into my current breeding program (she just had two litters last night so here's to hoping!) so it's just D'artagnan, his junior daughter, and Cersei. (Not including the 4 bottle-babies in my bedroom...)

It's a good suggestion, I had rotated the bucks when I had two of them but she ended up outlasting them both, especially since the other male was only half-way interested in breeding her.

AmberRae":1a2liubh said:

I had to reply to this post when I read about your Cersei. I have a bun named Daenarys and she has turned out to be quiet the mother. She overly mothers her kits and if any other kits around her's or not she will take over as mom! Maybe there is something to it when we name are buns after T.V. characters!

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Ugh! I should have named her Abra.... "Mother of many." :lol: My own fault! That's really cool about your bun Daenarys! We also had a buck named Hodor, who Cersei actually did like, but I ate him a few weeks ago in a (very tasty) meat rabbit pie. He also pretty much lived up to his name, strange bumbling grumpy guy who really wasn't much interested in breeding. Maybe that's why Cersei liked him to much, he was her cuddle buddy. :roll:

I'm going to pull all my doe's names from this list now....

Ugh! I should have named her Abra.... "Mother of many."

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But but but, the pokemon Abra just teleports away all the time, she'd be disapearing on you all the time.