When the rabbits reach the age of 23 days, you can remove the nest box from the nesting compartment, and put soft hay instead. At this age, baby rabbits show more independence and are able to eat the same food as a rabbit without problems. There is an opinion that at the age of 28-30 days it is necessary to wean the rabbits from the mother. But this is not entirely true. Yes, rabbits at this age are able to develop further and live without a rabbit. But they are still too small, and depriving them of additional nutrition, such as mother’s milk, is not always justified.
We will tell you at what age it is best to start planting rabbits so that they develop well and do not harm each other.
How to determine the sex of a rabbit
During the nesting of rabbits, it is necessary to first separate the boys from the girls.
To determine the gender of a rabbit, it is necessary to take it with one hand by the skin in the waist area so that it is upside down. Then the tail is pulled back towards the head and fixed with the same hand that holds it by the skin. With the other hand, the foreskin in the area of the genital organ is pulled from the side of the abdomen, in the direction of the head.
If at the same time the rabbit’s genital organ looks like a tube, then it is a boy. By the 3rd month of life, the tubule in the animal turns into a normal male genital organ. In girls, instead of a tube, there is always just a small gap, sometimes with small redness.
It is possible to determine the gender of a rabbit from the age of 15 days, but it is better not to do this at an early age in order to avoid unnecessary worries in the rabbit and rabbits. It is preferable to check the sex of the rabbit when it is weaned from the mother.
When to plant
The optimal age for separating the offspring from the mother can be from 45 to 60 days, in exceptional cases the weakest rabbits can be left with the rabbit for up to 3 months.
In each breed of rabbits, the terms of laying young are different. For example, in medium-sized breeds of rabbits, the laying of baby rabbits occurs at the age of 40-45 days, and giants can (and should) be kept for 60-75 days.
The optimal age for weaning rabbits is indicated. But it is not worth keeping rabbits near the rabbit hutch for a long time. It should be taken into account that from the age of 50-60 days (and sometimes even earlier) some young males already begin to show sexual activity and, in order to avoid possible misunderstandings, it is advisable to wean them.
Fights between rabbits
In addition, two-month-old males begin to establish or find out the supremacy in their group. In rabbits, as in many animals, there is a hierarchy of position in a separate group. When finding out the supremacy, young rabbits fight rather brutally in order to assert their position, inflicting mutilations on each other, or simply depriving each other of reproductive organs. Therefore, it is advisable to plant young males separately from each other, starting from the age of 2.5 months. In this case, when living separately, males quickly gain weight and develop well.
Fighting among young males is a completely normal phenomenon. However, fights among young rabbits also take place. These circumstances, as a rule, occur extremely rarely, but still it happens sometimes. When keeping growing rabbits in one cage, it is necessary to pay close attention to their behavior and stop possible fights among them.
If, nevertheless, rabbits begin to constantly fight among themselves, then one rule should be taken into account: never remove from the cage a rabbit that has supremacy and superiority over other siblings, even if he causes damage to any of them .
This is due to the fact that this particular rabbit is the leader and defends his position in the group. When he is removed from the cage, all other rabbits will start a struggle for leadership, accompanied by other fights. Therefore, the rabbit that gets the most from its peers in the group should be removed from the cage.
In cases where one of the rabbits has received some damage as a result of a fight, it is necessary to provide him with veterinary care and put him in a solitary cage. It will be calmer for both him and you.
Separate or common cage
When transplanting young rabbits from the mother, it is recommended to put them in the same cage as a whole age group, except for the cases described earlier. It is strictly forbidden to place rabbits from different groups in the same cage.
The appearance of a stranger (or strangers) in the cage will provoke unnecessary fights. There are cases when males from the same group, when kept in the same cage, practically do not fight, but as soon as a stranger appears, the situation changes dramatically.
When keeping rabbits in large groups, it is necessary to monitor their behavior and physical condition. The weakest rabbits should be identified in time and transplanted into separate cages. The reason for this is that more physically strong individuals do not allow the weak to eat normally, and therefore, prevent their further development. If such a rabbit is left in a common cage, it usually has no chance of survival.
Growth conditions
When transplanting rabbits from their mother to another cage, it is important to provide them with food similar to what they ate while in cages with their mother.
A sudden change in diet will inevitably lead to indigestion in growing rabbits and, as a result, to senseless losses. In addition, it is important to remember that when keeping rabbits in a large age group, it is imperative to monitor the sanitary conditions in the cage. A large concentration of rabbits in a limited area with poor sanitary conditions threatens the emergence of all kinds of epidemics and diseases.
The greatest intensity of growth in young rabbits is observed in the period from 3 to 5 months. Depending on the breed, during this period the weight gain of rabbits reaches up to 1 kg per month. The maximum growth rates are observed in rabbits of the giant family.
For example, rabbits of the Gray German Giant breed weigh 3.3-4.2 kg by the 3rd month of breeding, and by the 4th month their weight already reaches 4.8-5.2 kg. Up to 5 months, young rabbits weigh about 6 kg. Given the characteristics of this breed, a rabbit gains maximum weight up to 9 months of its life. For reference: the average weight of a rabbit of the Giant breed is 8-10 kg, and the maximum weight is not limited, but depends entirely and completely on a competent approach to maintenance and breeding.
Slaughter age
As a rule, in rabbit farms, meat rabbits are fattened for up to 150 days. This age in most breeds is optimal in terms of profitability of production.
After 5 months, the rabbit’s weight gain slows down significantly, and most breeds gain the main weight at this age, rabbits are sold for meat, and especially valuable ones are left for breeding work on the farm.
The main feature of keeping almost any breed of rabbits is compliance with elementary rules. When breeding rabbits, it is necessary to have knowledge about the requirements of this breed for the area of the cage, temperature conditions, diet, about the peculiarities of reproduction of this breed, etc. Taking into account all these nuances, the rabbit breeder should not have any problems with breeding any breed of rabbits.