On a farm with 10 or 20 does, memory lets you down within a few months. Which doe lost her last litter? Which buck fathered the young doe you want to keep? Records answer those questions, and they are the only way to know whether your farm is getting better. You do not need special software: a notebook or a card on each cage is enough.
The minimum: four things to record from day one
If the full list feels like too much, start with just these:
- Mating date, doe ID and buck ID
- Palpation result (pregnant or not)
- Number of kits born
- Number of kits weaned
Those four records alone show you which does are productive and which bucks are working.
Give every rabbit an ID
- An ear tag or tattoo number that is permanent and never repeated.
- Breed, date of birth, sire (father) and dam (mother), where and when you got it, and its current status: active, resting, pregnant, nursing, retired, sold, slaughtered or dead.
- For bucks, add a line label such as Line A or Line B (see the section on inbreeding below).
- Record a young doe's weight when she is ready to breed. Breed on body condition, not calendar age.
Every mating
- The date (day 0 for everything that follows), the doe and the buck.
- Palpation 10–14 days after mating, and the result.
- Expected kindling date: mating date plus about 31 days. The nest box goes in 3–5 days before.
- If the first attempt failed and the doe was mated again, record that too.
Every litter
- Actual kindling date; number of kits born alive and born dead.
- The date the nest box went in.
- Fostering: which kits were moved to or from which doe, and why.
- Kits alive at day 7. Most litter losses happen in the first week.
- Kits alive at weaning, the weaning date and weight (whole litter or each kit).
- The cause of any deaths, if known: chilling, eaten by the doe, crushed, disease, abandoned.
- After weaning: an ID for each kit, its sex and weights, and what happened to it: kept for breeding, sold (date, weight, price, buyer) or slaughtered for the family.
Why do causes matter? In one study of deaths before weaning on commercial farms, 37% of losses came from too little milk, 26% from does eating their kits and 22% from mange in the doe. Every cause has a different fix, and you only find out which one is yours by writing it down.
Treatments and vaccinations
- Date, rabbit, what you saw (symptoms), what was given, who gave it and what the vet advised.
- Vaccinations: vaccine name, batch number and next due date.
- Deworming dates.
- A dated photo on your phone makes it much easier to describe a problem to a vet later.
Avoiding inbreeding in a small herd
Rules that work without any pedigree software:
- Never mate full siblings, a parent with its offspring, or first cousins.
- Start with two bucks that are unrelated to each other and to your does. Label them Line A and Line B.
- Record which line's buck sired every kit.
- A young doe you keep from a Line A buck is mated only to the Line B buck, and the other way round.
- Every 12–18 months (roughly every two generations), bring in a new, unrelated buck as Line C and retire the buck from the oldest line.
When buying your founding stock, buy from at least three sellers, get does and bucks from different breeders, and never accept littermates sold as an "unrelated pair".
One buck can serve about 5–8 does, but keeping two unrelated bucks is the simplest protection against both inbreeding and a single buck going infertile in the summer heat.
Culling: let the records decide
- Health and temperament come first. A chronically sick or aggressive animal goes, whatever its numbers.
- Give young does two litters before deciding. A first litter is not always typical.
- A good breeding doe raises at least 85–90% of her kits to weaning, has evenly sized kits, builds a good nest and does not lose litters through neglect.
- In cold areas, a doe that fails to build a nest or pull fur in winter should not be bred in winter again.
- In hot areas, keep replacement breeders from animals that stayed fertile through July.
- At weaning (30–45 days), remove runts, sick kits and kits with obvious faults from your breeding candidates. Make the final selection at 4–5 months: for meat breeds, at least 3.2–3.5 kg live weight, no faults, and a dense, even coat.
- If fewer than about 70% of matings end in pregnancy, something is wrong and worth investigating: check the buck, the heat and the does' condition.
A simple system that works
- A card on each cage for the rabbit inside it, and a notebook for matings and litters with one page per doe.
- Once a month, copy the numbers into a single summary: litters, kits born, kits weaned and deaths.
- Mating does a few days apart gives you a foster mother if one doe fails with her litter. Your records show which doe is due when.
Common mistake: Keeping records in your head because "there are only a few does". By the time you have 10 does and their daughters, you can no longer tell half-sisters from unrelated animals, and the effects of inbreeding, weaker and less productive offspring, creep in with no obvious cause.
