BreedingMeat Rabbits
Rabbits have a well-earned reputation for, well, breeding like rabbits, except when you want them to. According to conventional wisdom, all you need to do is throw a buck and a doe together, and you’ll be swimming in rabbits in a few weeks. But often there are a few challenges in store before you can start counting your kits.
A Frenzied Fortnight
When it comes to reproduction, the words “estrous” and “estrus” look and sound annoyingly similar, but they describe very different parts of the same cycle. refers to the entire reproductive cycle, from the first day of physiological activity by the ovaries, through the sexual receptivity phase, and then to the period where all ovarian activity regresses, and back to the point where it starts again. refers solely to the period where females are receptive to mating, usually right before ovulation. This is commonly called being “in heat.” To reduce confusion, I’ll refer to the entire cycle as estrous, and the
