Confusion about Sexing Rabbits


(Colorado)

I read your page on sexing rabbits yesterday, so I thought I could try it out on my rabbit to see if it works. When I did what you said, it showed a slit in his privates, but more than once he has tried to get on top of female rabbits to breed with them. What's going on, and what should I base my conclusions on?


***** Karen Sez *****
I can understand the confusion - you see behaviors that look like attempts at mating by a rabbit -- male behavior in a rabbit that looks like a female according to the photos at https://www.raising-rabbits.com/sexing-rabbits.html.

The thing is, humping or mounting other rabbits is also a dominance behavior. Females and males both mount each other as a means of asserting their will over other rabbits in the litter or the colony.

How old is the rabbit in question? If you've clearly identified a slit, the rabbit is a female, whether or not it is mounting its littermates.

If you're still not sure, go reexamine the rabbit, applying a bit more pressure to the vent. Give it a firm stretch. If the slit remains and nothing pops out with a round opening, the diagnosis is female. If the extra pressure reveals a penile sheath that opens to a circle and protrudes, you can change the diagnosis to buck!

Does this help?

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Jan 09, 2014
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starstarstarstar 		Behavior Confusions?
by: Anonymous

Thank you for the advice. Well, I know he is almost 4 years old, if that makes any difference. But the strange thing is that he doesn't do it with every rabbit he meets. The first rabbit(female) he met, he hopped on top of and started to breed. Fortunately we were there to separate them before we had babies on our hands! The second(male)and the third(female)rabbits he met he just ignored, and the last two he liked to chase! Can you explain that behavior?

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