How to determine rabbit gender...With pictures

[SA Farm]

It's not as easy as you might think to sex a rabbit. Even experienced breeders can and do make mistakes in determining male from female. I've been checking rabbit bottoms for genders for about 20 years and am very rarely wrong.
I normally don't bother checking until 2-3 weeks old, some can and do check earlier, but I've never seen much point in finding out before ~3 weeks personally and I always check again later on.

All the rabbits in these pictures have their tails at the bottom of the picture. I use my forefinger to hold the tail out of the way and use my thumb to pull the fur/flesh away from the genital region to reveal the organ.

Here's a 3 week old Male and Female in that order. The male's pic is a little blurry, but you can see that below my thumb is clearly a circle - boy.

The female here has a slit rather than a circle.


6 week old Male and Female in that order. More obvious at this age, right? Male is a circle (ignore his big bum, he's about to drop a berry).

It's shaded, but you can clearly see that the female here has a slit, very unlike the male above.


If you can't figure out your rabbits based on these pictures, feel free to post pics - the clearer the better - and I or other rabbit breeders on the forum can help out

 

[alldembirds]

how old do they have to be till you can just spred the legs and see the males testies on the sides

 

[SA Farm]

Depends on the buck. Usually a year old is a safe bet, but the males can also pull their testes into their bodies to protect them, so sometimes you can't tell that way regardless of age since females will also have bald sections beside their reproductive organs as well. The males will, however have a 'shaft' usually by 4 months old:

You can see there's a visual protrusion with this 4 month old.

 

[alldembirds]

thanks thats great to know. I didnt know they could retract there testies

 

[Bunnylady]

Depends on the buck. Usually a year old is a safe bet, but the males can also pull their testes into their bodies to protect them, so sometimes you can't tell that way regardless of age since females will also have bald sections beside their reproductive organs as well. The males will, however have a 'shaft' usually by 4 months old:

You can see there's a visual protrusion with this 4 month old.

This buck is somewhat "split." This is a common fault, and one I see more and more. Some bucks are so severely split that they open up completely like an oversized doe's vulva; that's a DQ and it renders a buck pretty much useless as a breeding animal. It's one more thing that should be checked when buying/retaining a potential herd sire.

And even though a buck can pull his testicles into his body, there is usually a noticeable amount of slack, baggy skin where the testicle should be. Does never do that, at least.

 

[alldembirds]

And even though a buck can pull his testicles into his body, there is usually a noticeable amount of slack, baggy skin where the testicle should be. Does never do that, at least.

thanks for that, I kinda suspected.

 

[SA Farm]

I think that was actually just the quality of the pic, here's another one of the same buck:

And here's a 2 year old buck with visible testes:

8 month old:

 

[Mochi-sex-ed]

It's not as easy as you might think to sex a rabbit. Even experienced breeders can and do make mistakes in determining male from female. I've been checking rabbit bottoms for genders for about 20 years and am very rarely wrong.
I normally don't bother checking until 2-3 weeks old, some can and do check earlier, but I've never seen much point in finding out before ~3 weeks personally and I always check again later on.

All the rabbits in these pictures have their tails at the bottom of the picture. I use my forefinger to hold the tail out of the way and use my thumb to pull the fur/flesh away from the genital region to reveal the organ.

Here's a 3 week old Male and Female in that order. The male's pic is a little blurry, but you can see that below my thumb is clearly a circle - boy.

The female here has a slit rather than a circle.


6 week old Male and Female in that order. More obvious at this age, right? Male is a circle (ignore his big bum, he's about to drop a berry).

It's shaded, but you can clearly see that the female here has a slit, very unlike the male above.


If you can't figure out your rabbits based on these pictures, feel free to post pics - the clearer the better - and I or other rabbit breeders on the forum can help out

 

[Mochi-sex-ed]

I can’t tell if this is a male or female. Please help?

 

[Raptor Mountain Farm]

I'm pretty new with rabbits, but it looks round, so I would say boy. Good luck