5 Clues to the Pregnant Rabbit

How can you tell a pregnant rabbit?

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Xena, our broken opal doe, is 28 days pregnant in this picture. She has 9 kits in her belly, yet her tummy is just a little, um, chubby.

Let's say you bred your male rabbit to a lovely female rabbit. You write down the breeding date, count 31 days forward, and circle the date. You also circle the 28th day, the day you'll place a nest box into her cage.

How can you know the breeding 'took?' Are there ways to know if she's pregnant or not?

Here are five clues that should help. And knowing these 5 clues becomes even more crucial if you suspect a breeding took place by mistake...

• Your first clue a doe is pregnant is her mood - she gets cranky. A doe who was your best friend might suddenly flee to the back of the cage when she sees you coming. She might growl a little if you open the door to her cage. Does can get grouchy as early as a few days into her pregnancy.

  Don't worry. She'll chill out nearly as soon as her bunnies are born, and become your BFF all over again.

• The surest way to know if your rabbit is pregnant is to "palpate" her abdomen--feel for little baby lumps. You do this as early as day 10 or as late as day 14. This requires some practice, usually.

  Set the doe on a carpeted table or in your lap, head toward you. Be careful - she might be cranky by 10 days pregnant. Place your right hand under her tummy, palm up, making a bit of a cup with your hand. You want to gently explore the doe's tummy with your 4 fingers on one side of the back bone (from underneath), and with the thumb on the other side. Simply push upward gently, lifting the doe's hindquarters up a bit. Then slide your hand up and down, and see what you can feel.

  If you can feel distinct, soft little grape-sized lumps in a row on either or both sides of the abdomen, this confirms the pregnancy. (Hard little lumps along the middle of the abdomen are probably little poop-balls.)

• Some pregnant rabbits start trying to 'dig' inside their cage from 2 weeks pregnant and beyond. You might notice the doe scratching quite diligently at the far corners of her cage. If I wasn't sure I had palpated her abdomen correctly, I will be very pleased to see this behavior in the doe. It frequently indicates a positive pregnancy, at least in my rabbits. Although, a doe with a false-pregnancy may also scratch at the wire in an attempt to burrow.

• Another pregnant rabbit clue occurs a week before she's ready to give birth (3 weeks pregnant). Some pregnant rabbits become desperate to build their nest.
  
  Toss some hay or straw into her cage. If the doe starts gathering heaps of hay into her mouth like a jaybird carrying twigs for a nest, this is a sure sign she's pregnant.

  This is Amaranth, our opal rex doe. Look at her cram those hay stems in her mouth! And she thinks she can tuck in a few more stems!

  If one of my does seems agitated, ready to build her nest, and carrying straw early, I've been known to give her the nest box as early as day 21, when normally the nest box goes into the cage exactly on day 28. But I still won't expect the doe to give birth on any day except day 31, as usual. The doe whose hormones are running her ragged will calm right down once she's built her nest.
  
  If your doe doesn't carry hay around, it doesn't necessarily mean she isn't pregnant. Some does are mellow as jello, like Xena here. You give them a nest, and they start eating straw out of it. But the next morning (day 29), Xena had her nest nicely formed, though no fur pulled.

  Just to complicate things, the occasional doe will wait until the night she kindles to actually form her nest.

  But, my point is this: if you see the doe carrying the straw...she's for sure pregnant.

• Pregnant rabbits don't always 'look' pregnant, not even on the day they kindle (give birth). Of course, if there's 15 kits in her belly, you might wonder if you oughtta duck and cover--she'll look big enough to pop. Most frequently, they'll lose their waistline along about the last few days of the pregnancy. That's why it's helpful to know these pregnant rabbit clues for confirming your suspicions.

  BUT: if you see any sudden and random jerking of her sides during her last week of pregnancy, like quick little kicks, especially when she's laying on her side, well, that has to be little bunny-feet kicking around in her womb. You'll know it when you see it. And when you see it, you've definitely got a pregnant rabbit. Don't confuse the little kicks with a rhythmic rolling movement of the rabbit's intestines, however. Actually, the two are very easy to tell apart, especially when you've seen both.

The pregnant rabbit usually gives birth on day 31 without fail. But the bunnies can arrive on day 28 up to day 34. If I've bred the doe and buck in the evening, I can expect the kits on the morning of day 32. If no babies by day 35, the doe wasn't pregnant, and you can bank on it.

Click here to go to the Rabbit Behavior page. You can read the short little story, and try to count how many signs my pregnant rabbit tried to give me, if only I had been paying proper attention... I'm so glad I finally caught on!

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