Update on Snickerdoodles
So after Oreo's adventure in which, for those who missed it, he climbed over the 14" fence that divides their hutch and squeezed through the 3" space at the top, in order to finally canoodle with his love, Snickerdoodle, I needed to find out if he succeeded in knocking her up. So I googled "Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Bunny Sex" and "How Bunnies Make Babies" and "They Breed Like Bunnies."
I had read a bit about breeding rabbits months ago, but the only things I could remember is that there is no "cycle," the girls are pretty much always "on." That, and something about 28 days to the big day. Plus it seemed like a lot of work for me. Oh, and I remembered seeing a German angora rabbit for giveaway, the sole reason being that her people bred her and found themselves saddled with a litter of 9. 
So a few factoids:
. gestation actually ranges from 28-31 days, but can take as long as 34 or even 35 days.
. litters range in size from 2 to 15
. canoodling stimulates ovulation. my takeaway is the more times they canoodle, the bigger the litter.
Now the critical parts:
1. You can tell the dirty deed is done when the male finishes by stiffening up and keeling over on his side. Also he may scream. The good news is I caught Oreo in the act; he wasn't stiff, he wasn't keeling over and he wasn't screaming. The bad news is, I have no idea how long her was in with Snickers, other than he was in his side of their digs at 1pm when I fed lunch. So theoretically they could have been going at it for 4 or 5 hours!
2. The first sign of pregnancy *may* be a moody, grumpy girl. Since Snickers is already moody, sometimes greeting my at the door begging for scritches and other times retreating to the furthest corner of the cage, that sign is clearly useless.
3. The 2nd indicator is at 10-12 days. You can palpate and feel for the fetuses, which will be grape sized lumps in her belly on each side of her spine. Lumps lined up in the middle right under the spine will be poops.
Yesterday was day 10, so I decided to give it a go. I didn't find any grape sized lumps. I did, however, find a raisin-sized lump.
Day 11, so I decided to feel her up again. Uh-oh. 2 raisins, and I think they were a little bigger than yesterday's single raisin. Were they really raisin-sized or grape-sized? They definitely were not lined up under her spine; there was one on either side.
It's always a good quality control measure to test a known positive and a known negative. Of course, I don't have a known positive to check at this point, but I do have a known negative. So I decided to palpate Oreo. I didn't find any raisins or grapes in Oreo, but to be fair I didn't have much time to palpate. He started out fairly cooperative, but then I accidentally found his pee-pee and he started hopping up and down and kicking. I'm not sure if it was in pleasure or outrage, but it definitely made it impossible to continue.
The next sign may, or may not, come the week of the 23rd. One clue: it's something about mustaches. Stay tuned...
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