The gestation period on a rabbit is 31 days, plus or minus a few. A doe that is carrying a big litter may kindle in as few as 28 days, while one who is pregnant with just a couple of kits may go 34-35 days. If your doe is visibly pregnant, she is most likely due SOON.
There are certain clues that does may give that they are getting close to kindling, but since rabbits don't read "the book", you can't be sure they'll go by it, lol. Starting a week or so before her due date, a doe may dig in a corner of the cage. This is the point at which she'd be digging a burrow for the litter, if she could. Frequently, a doe will begin gathering hay to make the nest within a few days of kindling. Most does don't actually pull fur until just before or just after the kits arrive, though each doe has her own pattern, and you can't be sure just what any particular doe will do until she has done it at least once.
A doe will need a nest box to have her litter in. The box should be only a few inches longer and wider than the doe herself. If the box is too small, she won't use it. If the box is too big, she may sit in the box a lot, peeing and pooping and making a disgusting mess. I usually don't put the box in until a few days before the doe is due, just to keep the opportunity for mess making to a minimum.
If the doe does everything right, she'll have the kits in the box, clean them up, nurse them, pull some fur to keep them warm, and all you'll need to do is count them when she's done. However, an awful lot of does make a hash of things the first time around. She may not be able to figure out what the box is for, and choose to have the kits on the cage floor. If I have a doe that seems to be avoiding her box, I may line the whole cage with hay, so there will be some insulation wherever the kits wind up.
If in spite of everything, you find the newborns apparently cold and dead on the wire, all may not be lost. Rabbit people know that "they aren't dead until they are warm and dead." Using your body heat or warm water to gently warm them up will sometimes revive kits that seemed to have expired. Warming them too fast can cause them to start to revive, and then collapse, so they need to be warmed slowly.
Be warned - a doe comes into use
immediately after she kindles. If the buck is in with her at the time she has babies, she will most likely get pregnant again, and have another litter 31 days later. This can be very useful in the case of a doe that loses her litter, but it's a big strain on her to be nursing and pregnant at the same time, and you would have to wean the first litter when they are barely 4 weeks old to make way for litter # 2. Also, the buck can be very persistent in his attentions, and babies can get trampled and killed as the buck chases the doe and she runs from him. I strongly recommend that you get the buck into separate quarters before the litter arrives.
