Should I breed this doe?

[Aviodont]

I have a NZ doe coming up on 5 months. I have had her a little over 6 weeks. She has always been a bit of a nut job running around her cage, a bit high strung. But she always comes right to the cage door as I approach the cages. When I open it she puts her head out in a curious manner. When I try to pet her she is a little skittish, but will allow it if there are greens being offered. Well today, we resolved what we had been putting off too long….the trimming of the nails.

The extrication of the doe from the cage was difficult, but the real fireworks started when we were getting her in position to cut the nails on my wife’s lap. She starts twisting and kicking and scratching like a banshee. Fortunately NO biting. But she tore up my wife’s hand and wrists and there was a good bit of blood. Granted her nails are sharp, but she is a massive rabbit (at least compared to my standard Rexes) with lots of leg power.

I don’t think I could deal with that amount of stress long term. But I would really like to pass those genetics for that big body on to a litter or two and try to get a replacement breeder.

Now the NZ buck is just today 4 months and he is just the sweetest guy, unfortunately nowhere near as big. But so docile, he lets the little kids pick him up and carry him. I could not think of a more polar opposite breeding pair.

So two concerns:
1) could his temperament have a modifying influence on hers as it regards the kits or am I wasting time.
2) if I go ahead with breeding, how do I do it without getting him killed by the banshee?

I know she goes to his cage or a neutral area, but still, I am afraid she will go crazy on him. Maybe she won’t and will want to breed. But if she is not in the mood, it may not be pretty.

Are there precautions that could be taken? I kid you not… I was actually contemplating making a cardboard box (for soothing darkness) that I could insert her head first (somehow?!?) leaving her hips out and let him do his business. Desperate men will do desperate things!

Thanks in advance for the advice!

 

[Alaska Satin]

I have a NZ doe coming up on 5 months. I have had her a little over 6 weeks. She has always been a bit of a nut job running around her cage, a bit high strung. But she always comes right to the cage door as I approach the cages. When I open it she puts her head out in a curious manner. When I try to pet her she is a little skittish, but will allow it if there are greens being offered. Well today, we resolved what we had been putting off too long….the trimming of the nails.

The extrication of the doe from the cage was difficult, but the real fireworks started when we were getting her in position to cut the nails on my wife’s lap. She starts twisting and kicking and scratching like a banshee. Fortunately NO biting. But she tore up my wife’s hand and wrists and there was a good bit of blood. Granted her nails are sharp, but she is a massive rabbit (at least compared to my standard Rexes) with lots of leg power.

It sounds to me like she is nervous and unused to being handled, but from what you've described I wouldn't necessarily assign her a bad temperament. If she is really big and you were unsure about handling her, she may very well have picked up on your insecurity and panicked. My suggestion would be to keep working on her confidence by feeding her greens at the cage door, and talking gently and rubbing her forehead while she eats them, at least once a day. But you do have to handle her, to get her used to it; she was probably pretty irked when she was suddenly grabbed and flipped over, if all she was used to was being fed treats.

I would start with taking her out of her cage once or twice a week, and getting her used to that. (I would not take her out every time you visit her, or she'll stop coming to the front of the cage.) Put a table with a carpet square on it nearby where you can put her down without having to carry her very far. Wear a heavy long-sleeved coat to do the moving if needed; if she's big and you're nervous about carrying her, you could take her out of the cage and immediately put her in a box to carry her to the table. (Do the same in reverse to put her back, so that she can jump from the box into the cage, rather than scratching you as she springs from your hands into the cage.)

Once she's on the table, just spend some time petting her gently and getting her used to your touch. Focus on her head at first, although some rabbits are sensitive about their ears, and if so, avoid those; then begin petting her back smoothly and gently until she stops flinching. Giving her greens during this would be fine; your goal is to help her understand that being touched isn't horrible (even if she never wants to be picked up - most rabbits don't). It might take a little effort, but it will probably pay off in the long run. Not only will you enjoy your rabbit care job more, but she will be overall more calm and more resistant to stress-related illness or behaviors, and therefore a better mother.

As far as trimming nails, it's a good idea to keep them short so that if she does flail, it's less damaging to you, but until you get her to settle down, I'd hold off...baby steps, you know? But I have found that I can do a decent trim with the rabbit sitting on the carpet square if I just lean over her and slowly, gently pull the foot out a little from under her. I do the right feet with the rabbit facing to my left, then turn the rabbit around (or move around the table), and do the left feet with the rabbit facing to my right. After you've got her more relaxed about being handled, you can move on to the upside-down trimming method.

Incidentally, I've had high-strung does that were witches while they were pregnant but became puppy dogs after having the kits. Sometimes the hormones go one way, sometimes the other.

So two concerns:
1) could his temperament have a modifying influence on hers as it regards the kits or am I wasting time.

If you breed your sweet-natured buck with your nervous doe, you may get more mellow bunnies, or you may not; behavioral tendencies are heritable, but they are not as predictable as coat colors, for instance. Most likely you'll get a mix. Also, while bunnies do inherit temperamental tendencies, they also learn from their dam's behavior. So, that's another reason to put a little extra time into gentling the doe.

But no matter what, you'll have the advantage of handling these bunnies from the day they're born, instead of starting when they already have learned to be fearful and/or have bad habits.

2) if I go ahead with breeding, how do I do it without getting him killed by the banshee?

I know she goes to his cage or a neutral area, but still, I am afraid she will go crazy on him. Maybe she won’t and will want to breed. But if she is not in the mood, it may not be pretty.

Are there precautions that could be taken? I kid you not… I was actually contemplating making a cardboard box (for soothing darkness) that I could insert her head first (somehow?!?) leaving her hips out and let him do his business. Desperate men will do desperate things!

I would not be overly concerned about her "going crazy" with the buck; does tend to respond to bucks differently than they do to humans. But of course you want to do it somewhere you can get to the rabbits to separate them if things do go south. Having her head in a box might weird her out and result in her being unwilling to be bred, and a buck cannot usually pull it off without the doe's cooperation.

If she does NOT want to be bred, she'll probably run away, or sit with her butt pressed flat to the floor. If she DOES want to be bred, and he is not johnny-on-the-spot, she might mount him, which can be pretty shocking to an inexperienced buck. Does are typically bigger than bucks anyway, and an experience like that can really put a buck off. If at all possible, I'd let him breed some other, calmer and gentler doe, before introducing him to the wild one.

Not sure what your plans are, but if it was me I would wait till she was 6 months old to breed her. Smaller breeds can sometimes breed healthily at 5 months of age, but the larger commercial-sized breeds seem to do better with another month under their belts. Letting the buck mature for another month or even two would also make it more likely he wouldn't be overwhelmed by the doe.

 

[tambayo]

The buck would be more likely to breed at 6 months then 4 and for standard to big size rabbit does breeding advice is more towards 9 months then 6.
Clipping nails requires trust. Both that you don't trim to short (squeeze the nail with the clipper before you cut, reaction = to close to the quick) and the fact that you are holding a leg when the best defense for a prey animal is to run.

To me you don't describe an agressive animal but an uncertain one. Time and good experiences will fix that. And while rabbits don't like being picked up, part of that is not feeling safe when held. So good support, hold rabbit close to you and let her hide her head under your arm, when they can't see they tend to stay still. Make it routine for a week or 2 that you pick her up out of the cage daily to eat some greens (really favorite ones) on a table or some such where you want to check over, trim and otherwise handle your rabbits. Pet/hold the feet for a moment a few times without doing anything other then stopping when she ignores it / doesn't move, so feels safe enough to prioritize eating over what you are doing. You can retry trimming nails a little at the time after that and since you are training and you don't need to be done in 1 day, you can (actually should) stop when it goes well (very difficult, but essential when training an animal).

 

[Rabbit Tree Farm]

I would definitely get a litter or two and see how they turn out. This also gives time for your doe to settle as others have said.

I have also had good luck with feeding a nervous bun high value treats and sneaking in underneath and getting many of the longest nails thru the wire. Just until the trust is built and to get them used to the little sound. I even set up a cage just for that with one buck i had...he was neglected when i got him and his nails were growing sideways. So it took many frequent short trims to get him back where i wanted him.

I also had a temperamental doe...my first nz. She is in freezer camp now...but she and a polar opposite buck gave me many good tempered rabbits! While temperament can be genetic i think it can also be environmental. Something happened ... a predator perhaps...a bad storm...i don't even know. But something flipped a switch in her. She was always feisty but never mean until her last litter. I am considering saving the sweetest tri doe from that litter as her replacement.

 

[Aviodont]

Pet/hold the feet for a moment a few times without doing anything other then stopping when she ignores it / doesn't move, so feels safe enough to prioritize eating over what you are doing.

Do you mean “pet/hold feet” while she continues to struggle, then stop all my movement when she stops her movement? Sorry if it seems like a silly question…. I have never had a rabbit act like this in 4 years. It was like a tornado of movement and when it stopped there was blood from the scratching.

 

[tambayo]

Do you mean “pet/hold feet” while she continues to struggle, then stop all my movement when she stops her movement? Sorry if it seems like a silly question…. I have never had a rabbit act like this in 4 years. It was like a tornado of movement and when it stopped there was blood from the scratching.

She'd be on a table/stable surface with jummies in front of her for this. So she should feel safe enough to think and choose what is more important, the treats in front of her or your hand on her.

 

[RABBITGIRLFORTHEWIN]

I have a NZ doe coming up on 5 months. I have had her a little over 6 weeks. She has always been a bit of a nut job running around her cage, a bit high strung. But she always comes right to the cage door as I approach the cages. When I open it she puts her head out in a curious manner. When I try to pet her she is a little skittish, but will allow it if there are greens being offered. Well today, we resolved what we had been putting off too long….the trimming of the nails.

The extrication of the doe from the cage was difficult, but the real fireworks started when we were getting her in position to cut the nails on my wife’s lap. She starts twisting and kicking and scratching like a banshee. Fortunately NO biting. But she tore up my wife’s hand and wrists and there was a good bit of blood. Granted her nails are sharp, but she is a massive rabbit (at least compared to my standard Rexes) with lots of leg power.

I don’t think I could deal with that amount of stress long term. But I would really like to pass those genetics for that big body on to a litter or two and try to get a replacement breeder.

Now the NZ buck is just today 4 months and he is just the sweetest guy, unfortunately nowhere near as big. But so docile, he lets the little kids pick him up and carry him. I could not think of a more polar opposite breeding pair.

So two concerns:
1) could his temperament have a modifying influence on hers as it regards the kits or am I wasting time.
2) if I go ahead with breeding, how do I do it without getting him killed by the banshee?

I know she goes to his cage or a neutral area, but still, I am afraid she will go crazy on him. Maybe she won’t and will want to breed. But if she is not in the mood, it may not be pretty.

Are there precautions that could be taken? I kid you not… I was actually contemplating making a cardboard box (for soothing darkness) that I could insert her head first (somehow?!?) leaving her hips out and let him do his business. Desperate men will do desperate things!

Thanks in advance for the advice!

It sounds like she wasn’t used to being handled that way, so she went into freak-out mode. Some does will be meaner when they want to be bred. (My doe has just started doing this, but she was just at the fair, so I don’t know how comfortable I am with putting her in with the buck now. Perfect timing, lol!) I would wait until she is 6 months old to breed her. But when you do breed her, I would stay close so that if something does happen, you can stop it quickly. The does are good at letting you know when they don’t and do want to be bred. You will probably get a good mix of mellow and the doe’s personality. I wouldn’t worry too much about it.

 

[Aviodont]

I would wait until she is 6 months old to breed her. But when you do breed her, I would stay close so that if something does happen, you can stop it quickly. The does are good at letting you know when they don’t and do want to be bred.

I also want to wait for another month because of this infernal heat.

They do sniff at eachother through the cage walls (nose to nose). Another person thought she wanted to breed because when I put the buck adjacent to her about 5 weeks ago, it may have caused false pregnancy symptoms because she started acting pregnant about 10 days ago. (There was a recent post about that).

Are there things I can do to get her in the mood so she ovulates before I put them together?

And I will certainly have them in a pen where I can reach in to separate them if necessary.

 

[tambayo]

Smell of the buck and enough daylight hours. First you already have, second should be enough in the US, you are further south then most of Europe (Pyrenees is about 42 northern latitude, same as the US - Canada border).
Does do have a cycle though, so check the vulva before you put her in with the buck. Pale = not fertile, purple very, any deepish pink should also work. Leave them in at least 30min (provided they don't try to kill eachother), and since rabbits are induced ovulators, rebreeding after about 1 hour can help. Although there are those that allow the buck just one succesfull fall off and give their normal littersize regardless of buck or what ever else you do.