3 wk old kit humping?

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ohiogoatgirl

ohiogoatgirl

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i havent heard anything about rabbits starting so young but reading another topic on here made me think to ask anyhow. i know with the goats we seperate em at about a month old girls from boys. but these kits are 3 wks old (dutch btw) so is this just play? because they really cant be seperated for at least another two weeks. for one because they are so young and for two because i dont have grow out cages ready yet! :shock:
 
I saw one of mine about the same age doing the same thing! I would think they are just modeling adult behavior... but then again they don't say "breeding like rabbits" for nothing. Did he fall over?

I think you are right, you can't do anything about it anyway at this age... and I seriously doubt you'll get a pregnancy out of it. Even if he is capable, I doubt the does are.
 
Which brings me to this question, at what age are the bucks fertile? I know we say separate them at 12 wks. Is a twelve week old buck really fertile?
 
well right now i am checking the kits and it looks to me that 3 out of the 4 are bucks. and the one that i have seen hump was on another of the boys. so this seems to just be playing/assertive dominance i think.
thanks :)

and that is a good question skysthelimit. wish i knew the answer myself! haha
 
Young bucks can be sexually mature enough to breed at 12 weeks, but i think most are a bit later than that. They do seem to mature more quickly on a pelleted diet... or perhaps my line of meat mutts are late bloomers. I can leave mine together until they are butchered at around 16 weeks and have never seen a pregnant young doe among the freezer camp crowd.
 
Smaller breeds tend to mature faster...I've had 1 of my Netherlands completely drop AND breed at 10 weeks, no mistaken age just a VERY tiny boy! He was mature at 1.03 and was the ugliest of the litter to beat all. The resulting kids from that oops were almost as bad as he and they all were soon put to freezer use.
 
My bucks started humping each other and does at 8 wks. The 17wk old doe is pressing herself flat against the cage, and the 13 wk old buck is definitely trying to breed her. If I left them together at 16 wks, there would be kits. This seems like a fast maturing line.
 
I do think the natural diet means a slower rate of growth and a slower sexual maturity. Butchering size and sexual maturity seem to arrive at close to the same time. You need to observe your rabbits over a period of time to get a sense of how long they can safely be left together.
 
MaggieJ":24j9dady said:
I do think the natural diet means a slower rate of growth and a slower sexual maturity. Butchering size and sexual maturity seem to arrive at close to the same time. You need to observe your rabbits over a period of time to get a sense of how long they can safely be left together.
Click to expand...


Hmm, never thought about it like that. If these were culls, this would be about the time that I would butcher them for meat, though the 13 wk old buck was the size of a 7 wk old at 4 wks.
 
I recently moved some 6 week olds to a growout cage When they were with mama they minded their manners but unfortunately I forgot to put in the spray brrier for the buck in the cage next to the growout cage and he sprayed the lot copiously. Now it looks like a bunny orgy in there. Everything is riding everything.
 
Interesting, Hoodat! I've always felt that a good doe does a lot more than feed her kits and make sure they are covered when tiny. I think a lot of behaviour is monitored by the doe. I've noticed that a very tidy doe produces tidy offspring.

On the other hand, the change in behaviour might be the youngsters sorting out the pecking order after the cage change. I wonder if this would have happened if you had moved Momma instead of the kits...
 
I think it was the buck spraying pheremones that kicked things off but I know what you mean about mama teaching manners. The ones still in the cage with her are not riding. I've seen her give a nip or two when a kit got too rambunctious. Never enough to break the skin; just enough to get their attention.
 
Its funny because my little girl bunny humps the pregnant mama all the time. It isnt just a 30 second thing, she just lays on her and keeps humping.
 

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