Keeping does fresh

[Olbunny]

Our new buck is having trouble doing his job. Should we be concerned about our does not being breed yearly ?
I'm thinking I need to get a buck and breed them. And because we raise for meat. We are trying our hand at linebreeding and our original buck is one from our stock.

 

[ladysown]

is he young or just heat sterile? Not sure what you mean by "having trouble doing his job". and... do you only breed your does once a year?

 

[Olbunny]

He is a buck that doesn't seem to know how to breed. We are building a new home and don't want to have a lot of kits to deal with.
I just wanted to know how pertinent it was to breed our normally working does yearly. We have been looking for a buck that meets our rabbitry needs for a while now.

 

[tambayo]

Is he a buck? Was he born at your place are did you buy him? So are you certain he is intact and has 2 testicles hanging where they should be and about equal in size?
The one here that was just nose the doe and accept a cage mate was cryptorchid and went for the pot. Apart from too young, fat or fixed a normal, healthy adult buck should certainly try to hump/breed any doe put in his cage.

The worry with meat breeds tends to be weight gain to the point of unhealthy and becoming infertile due to fat around the ovaries. If you need to give your does a brake from breeding put them on a hay and very limited to no pellet diet. Other than that as usual feel your animals and weigh them regularly to monitor weight and how healthy and stabile a weight they are.

For breeding if you depend on one buck only it better be a proven one or you have a headache. On the other hand a back up buck just for getting your does pregnant can be pretty much any low/no maintenance, normal ears and same/smaller size breed of rabbit. Just for keeping breeders you want to stay within the breed unless there is a specific breeding goal you have in mind to reach that way. For the freezer in a pinch breed doesn't matter.

 

[Olbunny]

Thanks for the reply folks. Yes here is a buck from our stock. I am aware about the gamble with one buck and probably most of the other stuff.
I mostly wanted to know the effect of not breeding our working does for a year. BTW we have a new buck on the way. So we will breed them.

 

[eco2pia]

Thanks for the reply folks. Yes here is a buck from our stock. I am aware about the gamble with one buck and probably most of the other stuff.
I mostly wanted to know the effect of not breeding our working does for a year. BTW we have a new buck on the way. So we will breed them.

I have a buck that is just low key mellow. He was a slow starter when young, but he knows his job now. One thing that has helped was housing him where he can see and smell the does, breeding the first time in early spring when everyone is in peak condition, and not letting him overheat.

He mostly does well at breeding my does, who he knows. If I let someone bring a doe he will sometimes refuse. Those does also seem to refuse him--they are not interested or willing to breed. I think he knows what he is doing when he turns them down.

I do not think going from high production to annual production should hurt your does as long as you adjust their feeding--fat does won't breed well at all, so keep in mind their drastically reduced calorie needs and give them mostly basic hay instead of higher value feeds, particularly when they are not bred.

 

[hotzcatz]

Around here, if a doe was bred young and successfully had a litter, when she's rebred later, she's much more likely to conceive and successfully have a litter. If she isn't bred for a year or more, she may have more trouble conceiving, although if she does have a litter, she usually will remember how to raise it. Having an older doe as a first time mom has been the least successful.