False Pregnancy in Doe Rabbits
📝 Summary
A false pregnancy makes a doe show nesting and swollen mammary signs without any kits, usually lasting 6–8 days and lowering your breeding herd's productivity. It is caused by an infertile or over-stimulating buck, uterine or vaginal inflammation, or the doe's own progesterone after ovulation. Good management, repeat or double mating, pre-mating checks, and timely re-mating keep it under control.
1 Causes, Harm, and Prevention of False Pregnancy in Does
Why Does False Pregnancy Happen?
1. External causes: an infertile buck that keeps sexually stimulating the doe, or uterine or vaginal inflammation in the doe herself.
2. Internal causes: after ovulation, the corpus luteum secretes progesterone, which activates the mammary glands and enlarges them, producing false-pregnancy signs.
Harm of False Pregnancy
Most false pregnancies last 6–8 days. This greatly lengthens the interval between kindling and lowers the usable rate of breeding stock, causing real losses for rabbit farming.
How to Prevent and Treat False Pregnancy
1. Manage breeding bucks well and use repeat or double mating for does, so a doe that ovulates from stimulation is still fertilized.
2. Strengthen doe management: house breeding does singly to stop them mounting each other, and avoid random catching or petting that stresses them.
3. Disinfect before mating. Check the doe’s reproductive tract for inflammation; treat promptly with oral antibiotics if found, or wash external inflammation with 0.5% lysol solution, and only mate after full recovery.
4. Breeding selection. Never mate close relatives or sexually immature rabbits; forbid mating at the doe’s heat peak or in bad weather.
5. Use proper mating methods. Breeding farms can use repeat mating — re-mate the same doe with the same buck 5–6 hours after the first mating. Commercial farms suit double mating — a second buck 15 minutes after the first.
6. Strengthen management. Increase breeding stock exercise to prevent does from getting too fat; never randomly catch or pet does; house breeding does separately to avoid mounting.
7. Re-mate in time. Palpate does 10–12 days after mating; if not pregnant, re-mate promptly.
8. Treat false-pregnancy signs promptly. If caught early and put back with a buck at once, the doe usually mates successfully.
The above covers false pregnancy in does. If you spot it, examine the doe carefully to find the cause and choose the best response.
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