will another female hurt babies??

[canaan]

hi all...

wasnt sure which category to post in since i have several questions for people with more experience than myself... the baby question is at the root of it all, so thats why i posted here. thanks for taking a second to read and respond!

ok, had 5 rabbits living in a 60+ sq ft area. been together since they were a couple weeks old. now about 6-7 months old. they were getting along fine until i noticed some obvious activity. hmmm... so maybe they werent all the same sex afterall!

soooo, i seperated them all out to see which crate ended up with babies. i also made another attempt to determine their sex... turns out, i think 3 of the 5 were male.

i put the 3 back together (after only being apart for a week or so) and within minutes they were fighting like crazy - when they never had before! was the week apart too much? are they going to be scarred/territorial forever? plan B, put the mother and her babies back in the large pen and seperate the males again...

that leaves 1 other adult female. will she fight with the mom if i put them together? and/or will she hurt/eat/kill the babies?

as it is, i think i will have to find homes for the guys, as i am not a breeder - just a hobby farmer/homesteader type. had the rabbits as part of the variety for the kids and all. like the idea of having the large area with a couple that could coexist... 3 or 4 together, rather than living in smaller seperate cages.

in order to achieve my goal, am i better off getting rid of all of them and keeping just a few of the bonded littermates? they were not raised for meat, but the males are all decent sized if someone wanted to eat them, i suppose. they are not fancy pedigree. just farm raised rabbits... a brown one, a gray one, a tan one, etc...

any experience or advice on these questions would be greatly appreciated! thank you

 

[ksalvagno]

With bonded rabbits, it is best to have them spayed and neutered. Hormones have kicked in and that is part of the problem.

More than likely the other female will fight with the pregnant one. She would also probably kill the babies. I would keep them separate.

If you are really wanting some rabbits just to have as pets and coexist together, you may be better off getting rid of all the rabbits and finding a rescue group that already has a bonded pair or trio. Those rabbits would be spayed/neutered and are already bonded.

Even if you keep the babies together, hormones will kick in and they may not stay bonded.

 

[()relics]

You would be better off to seperate them and leave them seperated...If they are littermates and are females they may be OK together. I seperate male and female littermates at 3 months..the males individually seperated the females I will leave together until 5-6 months then they are also seperated individually until breeding, showing, or sale....JMO...I raise Ndwarfs

 

[trestlecreek]

Well, yes, I bought 2 sisters whom were caged together and were separated just for 1 hour. Put them back together when I got home and they started fighting immediately.

Rabbits need to be housed separately. It is rare that they will get along as a group.

 

[currycomb]

out of necessity, we put several does together in a dog pen. they co-existed very well, sharing the tunnels they had dug. of course there was the typical herd pecking order, who got to eat first, best sunning area, etc. they had plenty of room, and noone was there first, all moved in together at same time.

 

[JoieDeViveRabbitry]

I often find that people put too much worry into how to house their animals. I think this is far too often the case with rabbits.
All one needs to do is ask themselves how this animal would live in the wild in order to find out what type of living situation it would thrive in.
Rabbits are solitary, they come together to breed and that is it. They are not meant to live together. Even rabbit mothers do not dote on their kits the way mother cats and dogs do. They feed their kits once or twice a day, make them eliminate, and then for the most part they ignore them. Wild rabbit kits grow up until they can fend for themselves and then off they go! They don't hang out and live with Mom just because she's "Mom" and they know her.
They need their own territory out of nessesity. Think about it. EVERYTHING in the wild almost LOVES a rabbit dinner. They are definition of a prey animal. By being solitary and ignoring their young for the most part they are ensuring the survival of their species.
A giant herd of roaming rabbits on my property for instance would be a heck of a lot easier for a fox to hunt, than a single running rabbit. If a fox were running in a herd of 20 rabbits and just snapping and grabbing he would almost be bound to get one... With the single rabbit it maxes the chances that the rabbit will get away.
By only feeding the kits once or twice a day and leaving very little scent around the nest, the mother does not attract hunters to her kits. If she were to lay with them like a dog does for hours on end, she might as well be hanging a neon blinking sign out that says "Rabbit Buffet".

Now, this does not mean that all rabbits will always hate eachother but for the most part colony kept rabbits are the exception and not the rule.