dennis

Question
Hello Sheila.
Need some advice about our extremely docile angoran lop - dennis.  He is 6 years old with a fantastic temperment, thing is we are looking to be able to mate him with another lop - preferably short hair if one can be found to be able to pass on his genes.  Problem is I need to know how old the female needs to be and how many times to allow dennis to mate with her before she is pregnant.  We only intend to have one litter with dennis being "done" soon after.  We appreciate that having more rabbits creates hard work but to be able to share the pleasure of having dennis for so long and he is in excellent condition with only visiting the vets 5 times in 6 years so i think i'm doing something right.  Hope to hear from you soon.  Many thanks

Answer
Cathy, 6 years old is a little late for a first breeding. He might not know how.... the doe should be 5 months old - In this special case I would mate them once and wait for 8 hours and then mate twice more.  This is because the sperm that Dennis has right now is probobly dead, he needs to discard the first dose.  The doe will ovulate 10 hours after the first mating, so 8 hours later will give him a chance to fabricate more active sperm.  

What do you mean by "done afterwards" ? -  a healthy rabbit can live over 10 years.