Now that you've decided which rabbits to breed, and you have determined them both to be healthy, its time to actually breed them. There are several ways to do this, but we prefer the method we're about to describe for several reasons.

When breeding, always take the doe to the males cage. Males placed in the females cage tend to be to inquisitive about their surroundings to notice the female. Once in the cage observe the rabbits until mating has occurred. It is not unusual for the excited buck (male) to mount the doe (female) at the wrong end, or even for the doe to mount the buck. When the doe is willing to accept the buck she will lift her hind end. The buck may have to mount the doe several times before she accepts. They may even spend some time chasing each other around the cage.

When a successful connection happens, the buck will literally fall to its side, and will usually let out a grunt. At this point the doe can be returned to its cage. Since ovulation wont actualy occur for several more hours, we rebreed the doe to the same buck about eight hours later to insure that a successful breeding has occurred and to maximize the litter size.