Weaning Babies Together (M/F)

[Clara W]

Hi again!!! This forum has been so helpful, I thought i'd ask another question as I wasn't able to find any advice.

I'm going to start weaning my babies this week as they are 6 weeks of age. My question is: Can I keep the females with mom and just move the males with Dad? Or should they be all in their separate areas? They're all very well behaved and i'd like them to stay socialized.

Any advice?
Clara

 

[zuppa]

There's no need to separate boys and girls right now and it also not easy to sex them properly, in my experience many girlish looking rabbits were males after week 12. You can keep them all with their mother until 10 weeks, after 14 weeks females can get pregnant as far as I know.

 

[Preitler]

Well, I would keep them together until they are 8 weeks, 10 weeks if they are a large breed. Last year one of my doelings got pregnant at 14 weeks (hutch not latched properly), so she already was fertile, and this are 10lbs rabbits. Smaller breeds mature earlier. You can keep the doelings with mom, never had any problem, mine usually stay up to 20 weeks. But do not put the bucklings with dad, when males hit puberty they get somewhat bigheaded and might quite likely attack the buck - or vice versa, and contrary to does bucks fight fiercly from one second to the next.

 

[majorv]

If you want to wean them then it would be best to move the doe out to another cage and leave the litter together in the area they’re used to. This minimizes stress on the youngsters. Anytime between 6-8 weeks is fine to do this.