A nursing rabbit should have a sufficient amount of water and increased nutrition, since at this time her body is under increased stress. In order for baby rabbits to grow up healthy, they need to get all the necessary vitamins and minerals from milk. If their mother’s diet is not varied enough, then they will not receive the necessary nutrients. Find out how to organize feeding correctly.
Diet and feeding standards for female rabbits after giving birth
During the feeding period, the rabbit loses a lot of fluid with milk, so she must always have clean and fresh water available.
Important! If the female lacks water or other substances she needs, she may eat her cubs.
The diet of a nursing rabbit should consist of the following products:
- protein feed (peas, corn, beans), pre-soaked for a couple of days (25% of the amount of dry food);
- mash with the addition of grated vegetables (about 40–50%);
- sunflower cake – 30–50 g;
- succulent food (carrots, beets and green grass) from 100 to 300 g per day.
In addition to the basic products, you also need:
- yeast - about 5 g;
- fish oil – 4–5 g;
- bone and meat and bone meal – from 4 to 7 g;
- chalk – 3 g;
- salt – 2–3 g.
A female rabbit weighing about 5 kg should receive 350–700 g of feed per day during the feeding period. Moreover, the amount of food needs to be changed every 10 days:
- The first 10 days – 350 g of feed.
- Next 10 days – 440 g.
- From 20 to 30 days – 550 g.
- In the future - 700 g of feed.
It is impossible to say unequivocally how many times a rabbit should be fed, but the more often the better. It is advisable to feed at the same time. The diet in summer and winter is somewhat different. 
In summer
In the summer there is a very wide variety of succulent food. The diet at this time of year consists of grasses (clover, alfalfa, nettle, oats and other forbs), vegetables and vegetable tops, peas, beans and corn, and young branches of fruit trees.
Important! Juicy grass improves the rabbit's appetite, and she can eat poisonous plants along with it. You need to make sure that celandine, datura, buttercup, vekh and other dangerous herbs do not get into the cage.
To avoid bloating, you should not give wet and freshly cut grass (it needs to be dried a little).
Dried nettle is a very useful product in the summer. It contains a large amount of vitamins and minerals. Nettles can also be dried for the winter.
in winter
In winter, there is no fresh grass, so rabbits are given hay from the same grasses as in summer. The percentage of concentrates increases to 70–80%. These can be purchased mixtures, bran, sunflower cake, mash, etc. 
Rabbit mixer
An important component of the winter diet is mash. They allow you to compensate for the lack of important nutrients. The basis of the mash is oats or barley (50–60%), alfalfa flour (about 30%), you can add bran or corn (10–15%).
We should not forget about additives such as fish oil, bone meal, yeast, chalk and salt, which have already been mentioned.
What to feed a nursing rabbit to increase milk supply
The female produces 50–270 g of milk per day. Rabbits should eat at least 2-3 times a day. But sometimes there may not be enough milk, so it is useful to know how to increase your amount by making changes to your diet:
- increase lactation of mash with barley, oats, alfalfa, corn and wheat bran;
- Carrots together with tops, fodder beets, white cabbage, rutabaga and turnips have a milk-guzzling effect;
- Herbs also help: dill, parsley, wormwood, chicory, elecampane - but care must be taken with the dosage, since essential oils in large quantities can cause the death of the female and babies;
- Rowan fruits increase milkiness.
You should not give your rabbit milk, as this may cause her to become bloated. Possible problems
Even a healthy female can have problems after giving birth. She may lose milk, stop feeding the rabbits, or stop eating herself. However, it should be remembered that the female does not begin to feed immediately. But if the kids remain hungry even on the second day, it is necessary to look for the reason.
Did you know? In Australia, rabbits are considered dangerous pests. They cause $600 million in damage annually. Therefore, keeping them as pets is prohibited. The maximum fine for this is $30,000.
Hormonal imbalance
Hormonal imbalance causes the female to go into a state of violent hunting. She can abandon her offspring, give birth to baby rabbits outside the nest, and even trample them. Such a mother should be separated from the babies for several hours and mated. After covering, the release of hormones decreases and she calms down, and, if there are no other problems, begins to feed the offspring.
Stressful situation
The birth itself can cause stress in the animal - this is especially true for young females. Stress can also make you feel threatened. Therefore, it is not recommended to disturb the animal for no apparent reason, often take out the baby rabbits or clean the cage - in general, try not to create stressful situations. And if the stress is caused by childbirth, then usually after a couple of hours the rabbit calms down. Soon she will get hungry, after which she will begin to eat herself and feed the cubs. 
Sometimes after giving birth, a female rabbit can become very aggressive, but there is no need to worry or be angry with her for this. This is how concern about offspring very often manifests itself. Care must be taken in caring for such a female and her cubs. As the babies grow older, the mother's aggression will begin to subside.
First birth
In first-born females, the maternal instinct may not appear immediately. To solve the problem, you need to move the rabbit to a warm and comfortable place, lay her on her back and bring the rabbits to her nipples. But sometimes more serious problems may arise - for example, the female may bite the babies. However, this is often due to inexperience: she can help the baby be born and accidentally cause harm. Most often, this does not happen again at the next birth.
To make sure there is milk, you need to press your fingers on the nipple. If a drop appears, then everything is in order. If the rabbit does not have milk, you need to take her to the veterinarian. Medicinal medicine will help here
Kira Stoletova
During the period of gestation, the female rabbit needs specific care. Also, after giving birth, in order for the rabbit to produce milk, she must be provided with sufficiently balanced nutrition. Rabbits are not easy animals to breed due to their sickness and picky eating habits. Many breeders are often faced with the question of what to feed the female rabbit after giving birth.
Mating
It is best to carry out mating in the morning in the summer. It is the female who is placed with the male, and not vice versa. The feeder and drinker should first be removed from the cage. Immediately after the process is completed, you need to place the female in a separate cage. If the pairing does not work out, then the female is placed with the male again, preferably with a different one.
When mating is carried out, you need to ensure that mating occurs. After 5 days, a control mating is carried out. If the female no longer lets the rabbit in, then the first mating was successful. Pregnancy is checked by palpating the female's abdomen. A pregnant rabbit has a denser back belly.
The procedure is performed 10-12 days after mating. At this moment, the uterine horns are already enlarged and gradually filled with liquid in which the embryos are located. When palpating, you can also feel the embryos; they look like grapes, elastic, oval in shape.
Gestation period
A female rabbit can give birth to healthy offspring if she was provided with all the necessary nutrients throughout the gestation period and was kept in comfortable conditions. It is necessary to calculate the diet in such a way that there are enough microelements not only for the mother’s body, but also for the embryos for full development. In order to change feeding tactics in time, you need to know how to determine pregnancy in your rabbit.
The female reaches sexual maturity at 5-6 months, depending on the characteristics of the breed. The gestation period is about a month, the period largely depends on the number of offspring. Naturally, you should monitor the animal very carefully to understand how soon small rabbits will appear.
Often, without consulting a veterinarian, it is not possible to determine the presence of pregnancy. After fertilization, female rabbits become nervous, try to hide, and often get scared. Due to stress, rabbits even experience miscarriages. After successful fertilization, the female will not allow the male to approach her, and will hide from him in another corner of the cage. Already at 1.5 weeks you can feel the embryos in the rabbit’s tummy, and at three weeks the movement of the babies in the womb is clearly noticeable.
Diet during pregnancy
The expectant mother needs to be fed more nutritious foods. It is necessary to introduce protein and increase the amount of food by 220 g. It is important that the rabbit has free access to clean water. About seven days before giving birth, silage, greens and roughage are excluded from the diet. Instead, the amount of concentrated grain mixtures is increased.
For the normal development of baby rabbits and maintaining the health of the female rabbit, it is also necessary to introduce:
- salt;
- eggshells, fried in the oven and then crushed;
- Omega-3 fatty acids contained in fish oil;
An important nuance in changing the diet is the age of the woman in labor. If this is a young rabbit, then her body will still be at the stage of development even with the little rabbits inside, so her diet will be strikingly different from the diet of an adult female. A young individual should be given 20% more food than an adult female. Often a new pregnancy is combined with breastfeeding, in which case feeding will also be different. At this time, the female needs to add 350 g of food.
Protein is added at 18 g for every 100 g of feed. How to feed a female rabbit before giving birth:
- vitamin supplements 20%;
- greens in the form of meadow grass 10%;
- dried grass 43%;
- grain mixture 45%.
Dry branches are introduced into the diet to improve the functioning of the digestive system. The animal should not be overfed, otherwise it will cause obesity. Weight gain increases the risk of giving birth to rabbits with low survival rates.
Diet during the postpartum period
In order for the animal to keep in good shape and easily withstand the period of feeding small cubs, you need to know what to feed the female rabbit after giving birth. The diet of a new mother is the key to the health of her babies.
Experienced farmers say that it is necessary to feed the female rabbit after birth with more nutritious food. Because her body must regenerate and still gain strength to feed her offspring. The time of birth most often falls at night or early morning. Duration about 25 minutes. After giving birth, the rabbit must be given clean water to drink. Milk begins to arrive immediately after birth. For good lactation, the female needs to be given herbs, such as:
- alfalfa;
- vegetable tops;
- clover;
- spurge;
- vegetables.
The rabbits' menu should include fortified mash of various additives, dried grass, oats and bran. Almost the same thing is added to the food as during gestation. After giving birth, the rabbit must also be fed generously. When the rabbits are 2.5 weeks old, they begin to eat a little adult food, so powdered milk is added to the mother's food. The average daily diet of a female weighing 5 kg in the postpartum period:
- first day – 330 g of feed;
- up to 20 days – 440 g;
- up to 30 days – 560g;
- before weaning baby rabbits from mother's milk - 700g.
How to improve lactation?
To improve lactation, you need to provide the rabbit with the necessary care. The diet will depend on the amount of milk. Very often, lambing rabbits experience a lack of milk. This may be due to the age of the mother, the number of births, as well as an insufficiently balanced diet. The average milk production of a female rabbit per day is 200 g.
To improve lactation, you need to stock up on barley, alfalfa, oats and corn. You can give herbs that stimulate milk production: fennel, elecampane, parsley. Such herbs should be strictly dosed, otherwise the esters contained in them can have a detrimental effect on the female and her offspring. It is also necessary to feed the females silage and juicy root vegetables. It is not recommended to feed rabbits milk; this does not improve lactation, but may cause digestive problems.
Increasing lactation with the help of medications
Another way to increase lactation is medications. For example, the hormone oxytocin is used, which causes an increase in lactation through uterine contractions. After using it, milk appears within 24 hours.
The use of oxytocin does not guarantee the occurrence of lactation. If all else fails, you need to place the baby rabbits with nursing rabbits or feed them yourself using a pipette. It is very important to ensure that newborn rabbits are fed only on the first day.
What to feed rabbits in winter, female rabbits after giving birth and small rabbits
Fostering rabbits. What to feed
How to feed females in the cold season
In winter, feeding female rabbits and their offspring is much more expensive than in summer. In summer, various herbs can be obtained without problems, but in winter you will have to be content with hay. However, a rabbit’s diet can be perfectly varied during the cold season. In winter, before giving birth, your diet should regularly include: hay, root vegetables, boiled potatoes, cereals, bran, cake.
Specialized stores sell supplements that need to be added to rabbits’ food to restore balance. You can increase the amount of feed from cereal crops. When the rabbits are born, it is necessary to add grass hay and high-quality silage to the rabbit’s menu. It is recommended to avoid legumes, because the female may have problems with the gastrointestinal tract.
Conclusion
Raising rabbits is quite a troublesome task. However, their meat is valued for its high taste, and gourmets are not deterred by difficulties. In the breeding of any domestic animals, housing conditions and a balanced diet play an important role. Every farmer should know how to properly maintain and feed a lambing rabbit.
Before you change the composition of your diet, you need to learn how to determine pregnancy. Mating is usually carried out in the summer, in the morning. After the first fertilization, a second mating should be carried out five days later. The first sign that the mating was successful will be that the female will not allow the rabbit to approach her.
Already on the 12th day, you can conduct an examination by palpation. The back of your abdomen will be firmer than usual. During this period, it is already possible to feel the embryos. On average, the gestation period lasts about a month. The time will vary depending on the breed of rabbits and the number of rabbits in the womb. After determining the presence of pregnancy, you need to start giving the rabbits more food.
Vitamin complexes, as well as foods high in calcium and proteins, should be included in the diet. It is not recommended to feed legume tops to rabbits, as this can cause bloating. In addition to increased feeding during pregnancy, you should take care of a balanced diet after childbirth. During lactation, the body will expend much more strength and energy, so you need to once again increase the amount of feed.
It is not recommended to give fresh milk to female rabbits to increase their milk supply. Among calcium-containing products, it is better to introduce sour milk or powdered milk. In order for rabbits to have more milk, you can give them herbs like fennel and parsley, but this should be done following a clear pattern, otherwise the enzymes contained in them can have a detrimental effect on the health of the babies and mother.
For the health of the offspring, the mother's nutrition before and after childbirth is important. The correct diet of the mother rabbit will allow the cubs to get stronger, and the female to feel calm and fully care for the offspring. After giving birth, the female rabbit should be fed more often than usual, given more protein feed and liquid, and ensure a balanced nutrient content.
Diet of a pregnant rabbit before giving birth
The health of rabbits and mothers is established already in the pregnancy period. During this period, the diet must contain at least 220 feed units and it must be enriched with products with a high protein content at the rate of 10-15 g. protein per 100 feed units. The main part of the nutrients is spent on the growth of the cubs. Adequate nutrition will lead to proper formation and gestation.
It is best to use protein as a supplement; it is more fully and easily absorbed by the animal’s body.
Not only the volume, but also the composition of the diet changes. Vitamin and mineral components are added to enhance the protein component. In the second half of pregnancy, the content of large-volume feeds is sharply reduced, since the placenta puts pressure on the stomach and reduces its capacity. Concentrated feeds are better. With a smaller volume, they contain more nutrients.
Protein rich:
- legumes;
- oats;
- compound feed
They should make up at least 25% of the total diet. Protein nutrition includes sunflower cake, soybean meal, 20-30 grams per day.
An important element of nutrition is vegetables. Boiled potatoes or raw chopped carrots, 100-150 grams each. In winter, a pregnant female can be fed with hay, in summer - with fresh green grass, 100 - 150 grams per day.
An important role is played by nutrition, which is necessary for the formation of the skeleton and nervous system of rabbits. This could be bone meal or crushed eggshells. From them, animals receive calcium and other minerals and essential microelements. The animal is given access to salt (2 grams per day) and given a small amount of fish oil, 1-2 grams of chalk.
If pregnancy occurs in winter, it is necessary to use special vitamin supplements; in warmer times, the need for vitamins is met:
- green types of feed;
- fruits;
- vegetables.
A rich source of vitamins are sprouted seeds.
Increased nutrition should not lead to obesity, otherwise the rabbits will be born weak. A week before giving birth, reduce the amount of bulk feed, introduce alfalfa and pea tops into the diet.
The presence of water in the drinking bowl before, during and after birth is the most important part of care. Increased thirst or lack of minerals and trace elements lead to aggressive behavior of the female rabbit; she can eat her cubs.
What to feed a rabbit after giving birth during lactation?
After childbirth, many nutrients entering the mother's body with food are spent on milk. Therefore, a special diet is created, rich in:
- protein;
- vitamins;
- minerals.
In the period immediately after childbirth, it is important to include in the diet foods that will stimulate milk production:
- tops and roots of carrots, beets, rutabaga;
- white cabbage leaves;
- herbs – dill, yarrow, sweet clover;
- rowan berries;
- in winter - dry alfalfa.
To improve lactation and ensure a large amount of fluid in the body, it is worth enriching the rabbit’s diet with succulent food, fresh fruits or vegetables, and fresh grass. Rich in liquid:
- zucchini;
- cucumbers;
- carrot;
- watermelons;
- melons
They will help replenish the moisture supply in the body, even if the female is reluctant to drink from the drinking bowl. To get more milk, give sprouted seeds of parsley and dill. This is a good complementary food in winter when there is a deficiency of vitamins and fresh herbs. You shouldn’t give a lot of this food; it is added to the diet in small quantities.
Approximate daily menu after birth
In the first days after birth, the volume of feed must be increased slightly and a large number of protein components must be included:
- legume and forb hay – 100 – 300 grams;
- sunflower cake up to 40 g;
- wheat bran up to 30 g;
- legume grains or mixed feed – up to 80 g;
- 5 g feed yeast;
- meat and bone meal or fish meal up to 7 grams;
- approximately 3 grams of fish oil, chalk, salt.
This nutritional composition in the first days after birth is able to replenish the need for protein, vitamins and minerals, then the amount of nutrition is gradually increased as the babies grow.
Composition of a nursing rabbit's diet
The amount of food is determined by the age of the cubs:
- in the first ten days of life, mother rabbits require 330 units of feed;
- from 11 to 20 days – 440 units;
- 20 – 30 days: 560 feed units.
100 units require 16-18 grams of protein. To produce 1 ml of milk, 0.9 grams of protein will be needed.
Seasonal feeding habits
In summer, fresh green herbs, fruits and vegetables, and young grain shoots will become a rich source of vitamins. The basis of the rabbit's summer nutrition is:
- alfalfa;
- clover;
- oats;
- fruits and vegetables.
In winter, when green grass is not available, the basis of nutrition is hay, preferably legumes, rich in protein. It’s good if the mixed hay contains vitamin herbs:
- sagebrush;
- nettle;
- clover.
In winter, cake and bran help maintain health. They are high in fiber and protein. Be sure to include mineral supplements, special complexes or ordinary chalk in your diet.
At any time of the year, a nursing rabbit should be given concentrates and mash.
Concentrated feeds and mash
Concentrated feeds allow you to increase the amount of nutrients and calories your animal receives. For a nursing rabbit, their share in the diet gradually increases due to hay and grass, and reaches 80% of the total diet. The following mixtures are used as concentrates:
- bran;
- cake;
- oatmeal;
- crushed with vegetables.
Concentrated feed and compound feed are digested almost completely, up to 90%. You can purchase special feed and concentrates, the composition of which has a beneficial effect on lactation.
The mashes are formed from crushed feed. Suitable for nursing rabbits:
- 60% fine alfalfa and 40% crushed oats;
- 60% alfalfa and 30% barley, 10% corn;
- 60% alfalfa, 10% bran, 10% legumes; 10% wheat, 10% vegetables.
Special mineral complexes and a little sour or powdered milk are added to the mash. It is well accepted during lactation, enriches the diet with protein and calcium, and helps normalize digestion.
Use warm and moist mash. To do this, the grain is soaked in water, it becomes softer and brings more moisture into the body. Warm, moist mash has a particularly good effect on lactation in winter, combining food and warm drink.
15-20 days after birth, the rabbits learn to eat on their own from their mother’s feeder. Therefore, it is necessary to increase the total amount of feed by almost 3 times or prepare separate crushed grain for young animals, soaked for 3 days.
If the female rabbit does not eat after giving birth or refuses water, stress factors may play a role. It should be placed in a quiet place and the rabbits should be applied to the nipples. Mating with a male also helps. After it, the hormonal levels will normalize, the animal will calm down and the condition will return to normal.
Properly organized nutrition and care during bearing and feeding offspring will allow you to get a healthy and active offspring and maintain the health of the female. Considering that a female rabbit can bring more than one offspring, it is important to preserve the resources of her body.
Igor Nikolaev
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The diet of pregnant and lactating rabbits must be given special attention, since during these periods they eat not only to meet the needs of their body, but also to ensure the normal development and growth of the offspring. During gestation, a lot of energy is spent on the formation and development of embryos, and during feeding - on milk production. What to feed a female rabbit after giving birth, as well as the peculiarities of her feeding during pregnancy is the topic of our article.
The diet of a female bearing offspring must contain at least 220 feed units (FU). During this period, products with a high protein content are added to it at the rate of every 100 KE - approximately 10-15 grams of proteins.
These proteins are best absorbed by the animal's body. They are mainly spent on the formation of the placenta, amniotic membranes and the embryos themselves, so that the expectant mother herself has a very small amount left to ensure her own vital functions.
In addition to proteins, the diet of a pregnant female should contain vitamins and minerals in the quantities required by the mother and offspring. The diet of a female rabbit in the second half of pregnancy is characterized by a sharp reduction in the proportion of bulk feed. Silage is completely excluded from the diet and, as a rule, it is replaced with carrots.
What foods are most beneficial and nutritious for pregnant females?
- Legume grains (for example, beans or peas), oats and mixed feed - at the rate of approximately 80 grams in summer and up to 100 in winter in summer and 100 in winter (the share of legume types of feed should be at the level of 25 percent of the total amount of dry food);
- sunflower cake containing a large amount of proteins - ranging from 30 to 50 grams;
- soybean meal – from 20 to 30 grams;
- boiled potatoes – 100 grams;
- carrots – about 150 grams;
- in winter – fresh high-quality hay – approximately 150-200 grams; in summer - green grass feed from 550 to 700 grams;
- meat and bone or fish meal and chalk - approximately one to two grams;
- table salt – 1.5 g;
- ground eggshells into powder - one or two grams;
- fish oil - two grams.
The winter diet of a pregnant female must contain vitamin complexes designed to compensate for the lack of green food at this time, which serves as a source of vitamins in the summer. It is useful to introduce sprouted grains – oats or wheat – into the rabbit’s diet. It is also necessary to give her mineral supplements (usually they come in combination with vitamin supplements). If there is an acute deficiency of salts and minerals in the female’s body, she is able to eat the newborn offspring.
The total volume of the diet of young rabbits during pregnancy increases by approximately 15 to 20 percent of the usual, since the expectant mothers themselves are still growing.
However, pregnant females should never be overfed. If they develop obesity, the offspring will be weak and not viable.
Immediately before giving birth (about a week before the expected due date), the amount of feed should be slightly reduced, mainly due to bulk types. Green plant foods should be high in protein (alfalfa is good). Pea tops are also well absorbed by the pregnant rabbit's body. The share of meadow grasses in the total diet should be no more than 10 percent of the total amount of green food.
Particular attention should be paid to ensuring that the female has 24-hour free access to clean and fresh water.
Before the female starts giving birth, check the drinking bowl. If there was no water in the cage at the time of giving birth, the female rabbit may eat the cubs.
A lactating female also spends a lot of nutrients, minerals and vitamins on producing milk to feed her offspring. In this regard, during this period it is necessary to provide it with a sufficient amount of all the substances listed above. In addition, the dairy rabbit needs a large volume of fluid, which is constantly consumed to produce milk.
The amount of food products is determined based on the age of the growing cubs.
Typically, in the first ten days of feeding, the daily ration should be at the level of 330 feed units. Starting from the eleventh and up to the twentieth day of life of the rabbits, this figure increases to the figure of 440-k. Well, if the cubs are from 20 to 30 days old, then during this period the female should receive food daily in the amount of 560 food units.
If the rabbits are not weaned within a month and they remain suckled, then from the thirtieth day until the end of milk feeding the female rabbit needs 700 KE per day. In the daily diet, for every 100 units of food there should be at least 16 - 18 grams of protein, since to produce one milliliter of milk a rabbit needs to spend about 0.9 grams of protein. In other words, every day this number can reach almost thirty.
If the birth occurred in the summer, the basis of the diet should be green plant foods. Preferred foods are clover, dry alfalfa, meadow herbs, and oat mixtures.
In winter, most of the diet consists of high-quality forb hay, legumes, boiled potatoes and other root crops, as well as high-quality silage. Of the dry types of food, sunflower or soybean cake, peas and oats are preferable, since these products contain the most protein.
An approximate daily menu for a female after giving birth and during lactation looks like this:
- forb and legume hay - from one hundred to three hundred grams (in the summer, one kilogram of green grass is given instead);
- sunflower cake – approximately 40-60 grams;
- sunflower meal or wheat bran – approximately 30 grams;
- legumes and mixed feed - from 70 to 80 grams;
- special feed yeast - approximately 5 grams;
- meat and bone or fish meal - three to seven grams;
- fish oil – 3-4 g;
- chalk - about three grams;
- regular table salt - two and a half grams.
When they reach twenty days of age, the cubs begin to emerge from the nest. From this moment on, they gradually begin to be accustomed to “adult” food.
Starting from the age of one month, the young animals are fed with crushed grain, which is recommended to be pre-steamed in boiling water, then cooled and given to the rabbits. Also, suckling young animals can be fed with carrots, as well as their tops and high-quality hay.
To increase the female's milk production, it is good to use green food, silage and various root vegetables. In winter, it is necessary to increase the proportion of succulent feed (silage and vegetables) in the diet. Experts also recommend giving a nursing rabbit sprouts of parsley and dill, which have a beneficial effect on milk production. However, these herbs must be dosed very carefully. Parsley and dill contain a large amount of essential oils, and their high concentration in the body can kill both the baby rabbit and the mother herself.
Experienced rabbit breeders advise giving lactating females a mash of, for example, 60 percent dry alfalfa and 40 percent oats. Oats in them can be replaced with barley mixed with corn grains (10 percent of the total volume of the mash), or wheat bran (about 12 percent). It is necessary to add vitamin and mineral supplements to such mash. You can give the female either sour or dry milk. It is not recommended to give fresh milk, as it makes rabbits' stomachs swell.
In order to get healthy offspring pregnant females should be given special attention. We are talking about appropriate living conditions and adequate feeding. A female rabbit is simply put, a pregnant female from which 4-5 litters can be produced in a year without harm to her health. Rabbits are distinguished by their high precocity. After all, it doesn't last long rabbit pregnancy term gestation averages 28-32 days.
How to properly care for a pregnant rabbit.
Pregnancy is different for everyone. For most, behavior remains unchanged. And if some individuals behave aggressively, others try, on the contrary, to hide from prying eyes. Therefore, it is necessary to create the most calm atmosphere possible and not unnecessarily disturb the expectant mother. On the 25th day, the babies in her belly are already moving and she become restless.
A female selected for breeding must be placed in a separate cage, where there should always be enough food and clean water. After mating, from the first days it is very important to properly organize feeding pregnant rabbits, since the vitality of future offspring depends on this. After all, a properly selected diet contributes to the full development of the embryo. It must include juicy, roughage and concentrated feed and vitamin preparations that can be added to the water.
Pay special attention to sanitary conditions. The cage must be cleaned, and 7 days before the birth, a queen cell (nursery) covered with straw is installed in it. Each female rabbit must have her own queen cell, so a foreign smell can scare her away or cause aggression. Usually pregnant females 3-5 days before the birth, they begin to prepare the nest and carry bundles of hay or straw in their mouths, and a day before the birth, they pluck out the fluff that lines the queen cell. True, this does not always happen; everything here is very individual. Some individuals do not prepare the nest in advance, and the fluff is combed out only after the babies are born. Moreover, behavior before childbirth does not in any way affect the maternal instinct.
Ask questions related to the pregnancy of rabbits under the video in the comments! An expert rabbit breeder will be happy to advise you.
Most rabbit breeders carry out mating on the 45th day after birth, and release the rabbits 7-10 days before birth. It turns out that rabbit pregnancy takes place in not entirely favorable conditions, since during this period it is subjected to double load. This has a negative impact both on her physical condition and on the immunity of the offspring. Due to the exhaustion of the mother's body, the rabbits do not receive the necessary nutrients for full growth and development, which negatively affects the quality of the livestock. Therefore, it is recommended to mate only after the rabbits are separated from their mother.
How to determine the pregnancy of a female rabbit?
Advice from an expert rabbit breeder.
As a rule, a control mating is performed on the 5th day after mating. If everything was successful the first time, then the female will rush, scratch and will not let the male near her. There is another way how to determine if a rabbit is pregnant. On the 15th day you need to try to probe the embryos. To do this, you need to put her on her back and gently run her hand over her stomach. During pregnancy, embryos the size of a cherry or a walnut should be palpable. Is it true, we do not recommend doing this, since few people succeed in feeling the presence of embryos, and such manipulations are a great stress for the future mother, which can provoke a miscarriage. If female rabbit's pregnancy false, then quite often on the 15-18th day she begins to scratch the fluff. Don’t waste your time, feel free to throw it to the rabbit, this is an obvious deception. Over the next few weeks, she will only gain weight, and only then it will be very difficult for her to suffer.
