Seriously guys... Seriously... What is going on with these rabbits? We were all prepared to get another doe and trying to figure out what to do with Fabio since George was obviously our dominant male who was doing all the mating but these rabbits seem to rival Austin in the ways of psychological trickery.
Yesterday, Austin and I took the rabbits out of their cages and placed them in the run together because it's been a little while since they were last out (and because I'm officially done with my O-Chem class so I was going home to IL to celebrate my birthday...YAY ME!). We observed said rabbits and George was doing his thing with Jane (and occasionally Fabio) because he is obviously top bunny. So, we separated them occasionally, taking out different rabbits and seeing what would happen. When George and Fabio were left in the cage together, they did what is known as "circling" which rabbits do before they fight/to assert dominance.
Oddly enough, if Fabio acted like he was going to fight back, George would lay down submissively. As soon as Fabio backed off, George was back to causing trouble. Rabbits... they just enjoy causing trouble, right?
We decided that we would brush the bunnies and cut their nails before I left so we took George and Jane inside so that we could tend to them. Being the overly cautious lady I am, I decided to look up how to sex rabbits so we could make sure (100%) that we had two bucks and one doe before we looked too heavily into buying another doe. Also, it would be good practice for future litters. We decided that hardest part would be figuring out how to hold the bunnies during the inspection.
The method we chose for holding the bunnies was to hold them to our chest (head under our chin, butt at about our waist) while sitting, scruff them, then lean forwards and put their back/butts against our thighs. Once we got them into the correct position, they fell into a sort of trance (we have a hilarious picture of Fabio in such a trance. He looks like he's on drugs... or dead... I SWEAR I DIDN'T KILL HIM). It was cool and a good learning experience.
Since our rabbits are nearing 20 weeks it would be easy to tell their genders (since we knew what we were looking for). Jane was a good girl, very calm as usual. She didn't even poop on me! YAY! She is 100% female (she was more of a test run to know what female bits would look like even though we'd seen pictures). Fabio was surprisingly calm once we got him into the right position. Males have little bald spots where their testicles will/have descended so it was very obvious that he was male before we did a more 'thorough' check. He is definitely male.
BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE! George. Of course, George would be the one to confuse/surprise us. We flipped him over (he was good, too). We looked around, no bald spots... and guess what... Yep. Female bits. George is once again Georgia with a little bit of gender confusion.
After some research we have determined that Georgia is displaying this behavior because she is territorial, ready to mate, or simply wanting to be dominant. We hope she is wanting to mate. Does will sometimes 'get the male's attention' then hope he gets the hint and returns the favor. Does will also mount other rabbits of any gender (sometimes even legs or arms) to show dominance and try to become head honcho.
So, we once again have two does and one buck and are back to square one. We need to teach Fabio how to do what rabbits do (somehow). Maybe Austin should give him "The Talk" and see how that works?
Alas, until next time, the buck stops here (HA!)
-Lauren
Yesterday, Austin and I took the rabbits out of their cages and placed them in the run together because it's been a little while since they were last out (and because I'm officially done with my O-Chem class so I was going home to IL to celebrate my birthday...YAY ME!). We observed said rabbits and George was doing his thing with Jane (and occasionally Fabio) because he is obviously top bunny. So, we separated them occasionally, taking out different rabbits and seeing what would happen. When George and Fabio were left in the cage together, they did what is known as "circling" which rabbits do before they fight/to assert dominance.
Oddly enough, if Fabio acted like he was going to fight back, George would lay down submissively. As soon as Fabio backed off, George was back to causing trouble. Rabbits... they just enjoy causing trouble, right?
We decided that we would brush the bunnies and cut their nails before I left so we took George and Jane inside so that we could tend to them. Being the overly cautious lady I am, I decided to look up how to sex rabbits so we could make sure (100%) that we had two bucks and one doe before we looked too heavily into buying another doe. Also, it would be good practice for future litters. We decided that hardest part would be figuring out how to hold the bunnies during the inspection.
The method we chose for holding the bunnies was to hold them to our chest (head under our chin, butt at about our waist) while sitting, scruff them, then lean forwards and put their back/butts against our thighs. Once we got them into the correct position, they fell into a sort of trance (we have a hilarious picture of Fabio in such a trance. He looks like he's on drugs... or dead... I SWEAR I DIDN'T KILL HIM). It was cool and a good learning experience.
Since our rabbits are nearing 20 weeks it would be easy to tell their genders (since we knew what we were looking for). Jane was a good girl, very calm as usual. She didn't even poop on me! YAY! She is 100% female (she was more of a test run to know what female bits would look like even though we'd seen pictures). Fabio was surprisingly calm once we got him into the right position. Males have little bald spots where their testicles will/have descended so it was very obvious that he was male before we did a more 'thorough' check. He is definitely male.
BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE! George. Of course, George would be the one to confuse/surprise us. We flipped him over (he was good, too). We looked around, no bald spots... and guess what... Yep. Female bits. George is once again Georgia with a little bit of gender confusion.
After some research we have determined that Georgia is displaying this behavior because she is territorial, ready to mate, or simply wanting to be dominant. We hope she is wanting to mate. Does will sometimes 'get the male's attention' then hope he gets the hint and returns the favor. Does will also mount other rabbits of any gender (sometimes even legs or arms) to show dominance and try to become head honcho.
So, we once again have two does and one buck and are back to square one. We need to teach Fabio how to do what rabbits do (somehow). Maybe Austin should give him "The Talk" and see how that works?
Alas, until next time, the buck stops here (HA!)
-Lauren
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