I recently got a 14-15w old female holland lop. While setting up her cage I let her run around with my 11 month old male holland lop. Everything happened quickly and before I knew it my male was on top of her. Mating her. He did the squeal fall of action. Here we are 10 days past mating and I noticed she had fur on the rug in her cage seemingly as though she pulled it out. Could she be pregnant? Is that normal this early? What else can I look for? She’s very scared and only lets me pet her. I rescued her from a bad situation and she hasn’t had much human touch and was already almost 4 months.
2 Answers
First: With 12 weeks male rabbits can produce seeds. With around 5 month does (female rabbit) can become pregnant first time. Theire mating-organs are fully evolved by then. Bigger kinds may be a little later, smaller a little earlier. So in general, your boy can cause pregancy, and MAYBE your girl can become pregnant.
One rabbit climbing ontop of another (mounting) is a kind of dominance demonstration. Most of the times, it is not used to mate, but to show the rabbit on the bottom, that the rabbit on top is the boss here. Mounting can occure in all combinations, females, males, mixed (boy on top, girl on top).
IF the male was successfully mating, it would fall down from the doe, onto its back, legs in the air. Sounds strange, but is the secure sign, that this was mating and the doe got some seeds from the male.
A doe younger than around one year are not fully grown (in terms of body development, high, weight), they may not be able to get healthy babies, or risk their own health by becoming pregnant. Please let a vet have a close eye on her!
The doe is nearly every time ready to get pregnant. There is a gap of around two days, where mating would not cause pregancy, but the other days a doe is ready. The process of mounting (even if a female climbs a female) causes the ovulation. An ovulation causes much times the doe to prepare a nest (pulling fur) even if there was no male seed present and there will be no pregnancy. So pulling fur is not a secure sign of pregnancy.
Conclusion: Because of her age your doe is possible able to become pregnant. But if your male did not lay on his back, there was no seed transfered. That the doe prepares a nest is not a sign of pregancy, but a reaction to the process of being mounted by the male.
But in the future you need to be more careful, or better for the rabbits: let one get fixed (less complicated in males) and give them time together to be happy. Rabbits are less stressed, if they have company to share the duty of "looking out for dangers" what is an instinct and can not be deleted from their behaviour. And if rabbits are stressed, they will become ill. Have a look into this question about the advantages and disadvantages two rabbits have against one alone: Bunny alone, good idea?
(Source: kaninchenwiese a german website of an emergency help and shelter for rabbits)
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I've never seen the hair pulling so early, usually my rabbits would start doing it just some weak before, but once one rabbit also did a small hair pulling while living alone, so you better feed her and treat her the best you can as she is old already, always put males in a separate area e.g. a cage while doing temporary stuff and leating rabbits roam freely
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