Did You See That?! She must be pregnant!
Here is another case where our lack of knowledge caused us a little trouble. When we brought out first rabbits home, we had 3 doe and 1 buck. Well, one of the doe was a little cranky. She was bigger than all the other rabbits and seemed very protective over her territory. I had just read in one of the many books about the behavior of a doe when she is pregnant. It said that she would get somewhat protective and a little snippy when she is getting close to delivery. So I thought, hey! She might be pregnant. After several days we noticed that, she was in fact crankier than the others. We doubled checked, triple checked, then checked about 10 more times and yes, it was a female. We decided to wait to breed the rabbits until they were settled in better so we just watched her because if she were pregnant we had no idea when she had been bred and therefore no idea when she was due to deliver. We weren't even very sure she was pregnant until... I was out in the rabbit pen one morning feeding and watering them when I took time to step back and just watch them. I like to do this every now and then just to make sure I know each one's normal behavior so I can better tell if something is out of sorts.
I was watching Doe 1, the cranky one and I saw movement in her belly. I walked closer and watched a while longer and sure enough, her belly would ripple like waves going through it ever so often. Well, if her belly was moving she HAD to be pregnant, there was no other reason you would be seeing movement like that. Right? Being certain that she was pregnant, we saw no need to breed her when were going to breed the other doe so we just watch and waited. Well, we waited and waited some more. A rabbit is supposed to deliver between 28 and 34 days after being bred. After about 21 days, we were expecting the litter to arrive any time. Day 21, no kits, Day 22, no kits. By day 25, I was beginning to doubt if the movement was due to pregnancy.
I checked all the books I could find. No one said anything about movement in the doe's belly at all. Not even when talking about pregnancy. I looked on the web and thought surly I am not the only one with this question. I found one blog with this same question after searching for over an hour, and wouldn't you know it, there was no reply to the question so I still had no answer to why my doe had a rippling belly. We let some more time go by to see if maybe, by chance, she had been bred the day we had gotten her. After all, the guy had her in a cage with the male rabbit for the drive to the meeting point where we picked them up. Day 28, no kits. Maybe she will go a little longer. Depending on whom you read after they typically deliver on day 28 or day 31. We waited until day 31, no kits, and still no information on the reason for the movement. Some books said she could deliver as late as day 34. We waited some more. Day 34 no kits.
A different book said they could go, as long as 38 days but by that point, the kits would most likely be still born. I began to worry a little that if she were pregnant waiting any longer would endanger her health so I finally called the local vet that treats rabbits. I figured that anyone there would be able to answer my question. This could not be that odd of a case. When I called I talked to the receptionist, which are usually very knowledgeable about many conditions since they are the first point of contact between the vet and the client. She didn't have any Idea but said she would go ask the Dr. I was beginning to think that maybe I had gotten a rabbit that was really weird, had some rare condition or something or that I was about to have to rush her to the vet for an emergency C-section. Well, earlier in the week when I was talking to my husband about the movement in the doe's belly he made a joke by saying maybe she just had bad gas. I thought there was no way, if it were that simple someone would have said something by now in some book. Well, the receptionist called back and the vet said that it was just her food digesting. I just could not believe that I had wasted, at this point over a month, to breed this rabbit and the only thing that was wrong was that her food was digesting. My husband had been right!
So once again, our lack of knowledge had cost us a good deal of time and delayed the building of our rabbit herd much longer than we would have liked. Since then we have had many does deliver litters. We have learned what to look for to verify pregnancy. You can actually see the kits move in the doe's belly when she is anywhere around 1 week before delivery but this is a much different movement. When it is simply digestion the belly rolls like waves in the ocean or a flag flapping in the wind. When the kits are causing the movement you will see pokes or punches, like the kit is kicking the doe, every once in a while you will see a kit actually change positions but this movement does not look like a ripple it's a clear movement from one place to another not a gentle ripple like digestion.
I hope this information has been of help to you, maybe you won't spend as long as I did thinking your doe is pregnant when she honestly may just have "really bad gas".