Rabbits

[KristaJ]

Can you keep two females together even if one of them has babies?

 

[The Phantom]

@Kessel23

 

[cassie]

One thing I didn't mention was that beyond counting and checking on the babies, I didn't handle them unless I was fostering some to another doe to even out litter sizes. Can you keep two females together? Yes. Should you? Probably not. As Bunnylady has said, and I said too in another post, two females can get along just fine until they don't. Then it can get pretty bloody. If a new mother is stressed by sharing a cage with another doe, she may neglect or even kill her litter. And then again she may not.

 

[Bunnylady]

The biggest issue seems to be space - given enough of it, you probably can keep any two rabbits together, but "enough" may be an acre or more, if both animals are naturally dominant personalities. I would give any pregnant doe her own space, free from the irritation and distraction of another rabbit. Things might not go badly if a particular two does stayed together, but do you really want to risk the babies' lives to find out?

 

[Kessel23]

I have a large rabbit hutch on the ground, just a section of my chicken coop, it is a 8 x 12 run connected to a 4 x 8 hutch. I have multiple rabbits in the hutch and get several litters a year. The females rabbits have built a warren that has some tunnels that stretch over 20 feet out from the hutch. They have a complex social structure and there is rarely any fighting between the does but the bucks do fight sometimes. If I try to introduce new rabbits, buck or doe, they get mauled by the others and would be killed if I left them in there. You can have multiple breeders in one pen but there will be some fighting at first, they should get along and form a "pecking order" after a while. If you do want multiple breeders to a cage it will need to be big and you will have a very hard time introducing new rabbits once a "pecking order" is formed.

 

[Aerliss]

To extend on what kessel23 said; if they have adequate resources and get away from each other they CAN live harmoniously. Burrows are ideal for this. I had two does live quite contentedly alongside two bucks and have successful litters because they had burrows, lots of space and multiple feeding stations/access to lawn.

Conversely, my old girl who was neutered would murder anything that wasn't human or her dumb as a brick bonded buck within a square mile radius, if she could get her hands on them. That includes cats, magpies, rooks... pretty sure she'd have had a go at next doors dog if she'd had a chance.

A lot depends on the rabbits and current hierarchy too. But keeping two in a small enclosed pen with only one feeding station or two that are still near each other, and one small sleeping area will result in stress for everyone, including you. Even if they're litter mates and never been apart.

If they are neutered and properly bonded it's another story (though two does is the hardest combo after a trio to bond) , but that doesn't sound like what you want to do.

 

[o0Zilla0o]

Think that depends on the eyes that look at it, and where you are from in the world.
- I am registered rabbit breeder in Denmark and also exhibit them. And had rabbits for 20 years.

Here in DK, we do not agree that rabbits live together - since they are not pack animals, but living nicely side by side with other rabbits in nature but never living in the same cave. And if you want two rabbits to go together, they must both be neutralized otherwise one will always be dominated.

I can myself. just talk how my country looks at it and what recommendations we have at home, especially my Danish Rabbit Association, where I follow the rules they now have - one rabbit = one cage!

You will hear many who say that they had two rabbits together, and they agree fine. But when the truth is, when you actually butcher the two rabbits that went live together, a lot of wound and bruises of old fighting, you will find under the fur directly on the meat. Something you can not see without the fur is taken off by the rabbit - and you can not always keep an eye on their rabbits, they can fight at night so you never really notice there was a problem between them.

 

[Aerliss]

In the UK, Sweden, and I believe Germany rabbits must be kept in pairs or social groups, as they are social animals. In the wild, and in domestic groups in large pens with field access, rabbits spend a lot of their time socialising, either simply snoozing next to each other or grooming each other. It's only when resources such as space, hiding and nesting areas, and food appear limited, such as in a cage, that fighting is an issue.

When given the choice, does in a large fenced-in field spent as much as 90% of their daylight resting periods in physical contact, and does in laboratory pens spent 79% of the time in close proximity with others. Another study found that paired rabbits in cages rested in body contact with one another for as much as 58% of their total resting time. In addition, does worked almost as hard for limited social contact as they did for food, suggesting that a high value was placed on social interactions. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5113872/#!po=9.88372
​

So it's not accurate to say that they are not social animals. They are very social, but they are very much like humans in that sometimes they'll want some alone time, or will become anxious over resources if those are limited.

The most important factor aside from responsible introductions and the personalities of the rabbits is resource access.

 

[Bunnylady]

Odd . . . I just read that link, (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5113872/#bib74)
and I didn't get "rabbits are very social" out of it. I saw things like:

With adequate resources, being social does not appear to be a necessity for and may actually be avoided by wild rabbits.

Not surprisingly, subordinate does and bucks had higher levels of cortisol than do more dominant animals, suggesting subordinates experience some degree of chronic stress. High-ranking female rabbits are more active than are low-ranking ones, suggesting that subordinate animals may be inhibited behaviorally by dominants.

Another study found that group housing of breeding does is associated with higher kit mortality and shorter doe lifespan, suggesting that continuous social housing of this group of animals is suboptimal. Similarly, subordinate group-housed bucks in a large, outdoor fenced field had lower body masses, higher adrenocortical activities, and higher heart rates than did dominant animals, mirroring findings in wild bucks. These endocrine and immune responses suggestive of chronic stress in socially housed rabbits conflict with behavioral evidence that animals sometimes choose social interactions.

What I get out of that is, as they say, "it's good to be the king," but if you aren't royalty, life in the kingdom sucks. The rabbits that scratch and bite their way to the top of the pecking order may thrive, but things for the lower-ranking animals aren't as rosy, even if there isn't a resource shortage (in most cases, a shortage of resources seems to be the cause of the grouping of wild rabbits in the first place). Even though rabbits may seem to choose social interaction, living in close proximity with their own kind increases their stress level rather than reducing it. If they have a choice between a big, lovely space with other rabbits and a big, lovely space with no rabbits, they seem to prefer the one with no rabbits, but they will tolerate other rabbits if that's what they must do to experience the rest of it.

It's kind of funny - a member posted a few weeks ago (someone here may know who it was; I just remember the post, not the poster's name or the thread it was on) that they have two groups of rabbits, some who roam freely in the house and others that roam freely in the yard. One of the yard group had a medical issue that required her to be isolated for a while. When her treatment was over, the rabbit was returned to the yard, but she wanted back in the house and back in the cage, apparently preferring the relatively confined space with no rabbits to sharing a much larger space with several rabbits.

If a person wants to keep pet rabbits together, that is entirely their business, but if breeding is the goal, it sure looks like for any but the most dominant does, both the mother and the babies are better off when housed separately.

 

[cassie]

I know exactly how that rabbit felt.