How To Tell If A Rabbit Is A Boy Or Girl? Pet Parents Should Know This!
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A rabbit is one of the cutest pet animals that you cant get for yourself.
Not only are they adorable, but their peaceful and loving nature makes them an all-time favorite. However, determining the gender of your newborn rabbit can be quite difficult in comparison to a full-grown male rabbit or an adult female rabbit.
A rabbit is an early breeder; if you keep a group of unspayed females and males together for a while, they may surprise you with an unexpected batch of baby bunnies. For this reason, it is important to separate a girl bunny from a boy bunny.
So before they start laying eggs, you have to know the sex of your bunny, but sexing bunnies at a very young age can be subject to error.
They cannot be separated properly until they are at least four to six weeks old. A baby rabbit is very hard to hold, and their tiny genitals are hidden inside the fur coat, making it next to impossible for the breeders to tell the difference.
The only way of finding out the gender of the male and a female rabbit at such a young age is by applying gentle but firm pressure. This can be challenging for a new rabbit owner, but with practice, they will gain the skill in no time.
There are also some health concerns that may arise in the case of non-neutered rabbits. Uterine cancer is a common disease found in non neutered female rabbits.
If you are interested in knowing more about rabbits, then you can check out the articles on the biggest rabbit breed and rabbit bite facts too.
How to tell if a bunny rabbit is a boy or girl?
Determining the gender of a very young bunny is not at all easy. Once your little bunny is six weeks old its genitals begin to grow gradually. Depending on the size of the rabbit, it can also extend up to eight to nine months.
As your rabbits grow big enough and their genitals slowly begin to descend, you can finally identify the rabbit's gender.
For identifying the gender of the rabbits, the rabbit owners need to gently hold the animal on their lap and turn it upside down by holding the rabbit's scruff on one hand and its hind legs on the other hand. In this position, no differences can be observed between a male and a female bunny.
The anus and the genitalia of a baby rabbit are scrunched together during the first few weeks.
To check the gender of the male and female rabbits at that age, you have to put firm pressure on the vent area and pull its tail gently. This will expose their genitals within the fur.
If you see that the rabbit has a tubular structure with a circular opening, then it is a little buck. In the case of a doe, a small non-protruding circular opening is found, which can stretch into a long vertical slit.
How to tell if a newborn rabbit is a boy or girl?
Telling the sex of a rabbit in its first few weeks is impossible, as there is practically no difference in male and female rabbits till the first four to six weeks. After six weeks or sometimes after eight to nine weeks, depending on the breed of the rabbit, the differences between the genders gradually start to appear.
A newborn male rabbit looks the same as a newborn female rabbit. They do not have protruding genitalia, which makes determining a rabbit's sex difficult.
In the case of a male rabbit, their testicles generally descend six weeks after they are born. Then you can only feel the testicles of the males once you put firm but gentle pressure around its vent.
Without putting sufficient pressure, the penis of the male rabbits does not protrude enough to tell the difference between a male rabbit and a female rabbit. For finding out the gender of the rabbit, you have to hold the small rabbits in a secured place.
A low table or your lap is the best option for holding the rabbits. You need to gently lift the tail and put firm pressure on the vent, so the cylindrical testicle of a male or the petal shape vulva of the female protrudes clearly.
This method of determining the sex will not be effective for newborns. Putting pressure on the soft, newly born rabbits can also lead to some unwanted mishaps.
How to see if a rabbit is a boy or girl?
Rabbits are very social in nature. They reach sexual maturity faster than many animals, and the adult rabbits start to mate as soon as they can. To prevent this from happening, the male rabbits have to be separated from the female rabbits before they are sexually mature.
Even though a rabbit is born with genital openings, their genitalia remains tucked inside the vent in such a way that it can be seen until they grow into larger rabbits. For determining the sex of early bunnies, you have to wait at least until they turn six weeks old.
However, if you have adopted an adult rabbit, then sexing them is much easier. The easiest indication that a mature rabbit is a female is that the female rabbits have four to five pairs of nipples on the underparts of the body.
The nipples in an adult buck are poorly developed, and most of the time, they cannot be seen through their fur.
Some female rabbits also possess a pouch-like structure under the chin known as a dewlap, which is absent in the male rabbits. The fully matured females have a larger body than the adult male rabbit.
Apart from these general differences, the gender-based differences also become much clear once the male and female rabbits enter the adult stage. A matured, non neutered male rabbit has well-developed purple color testicles on each side of its tail, and each of them carries a separate scrotal sac.
When checking for the genitalia of the rabbits, you need to be very careful since scared or very cold rabbits can pull their testicles inside the vent. The female rabbits have a pink-colored vulva, which looks very different from the genitalia of the male rabbits.
Unlike the round opening of the males, they have a vertical slit that opens on the outside.
How to tell if a rabbit is a boy or girl by its face?
Some people believe that you can tell the gender of the rabbits by closely examining their physical differences and behavioral characteristics. However, this type of distinction is not always accurate and therefore is not of much use when it comes to determining the gender of your domestic rabbits.
Rabbits do not have striking physical differences. It is difficult to tell their sexes apart by only looking at their faces. The rabbits of the same species appear quite similar irrespective of their gender.
It is believed that female rabbits grow larger than males when they mature. According to some, the face of a female rabbit is much rounder than a male.
The male rabbits have a more rectangular face. However, you should never rely on these facial traits as a simple glance is not enough to determine such size differences. Checking their genitalia is the safest option and yield accurate results.
Here at Kidadl, we have carefully created lots of interesting family-friendly facts for everyone to enjoy! If you liked our suggestions for how to tell if a rabbit is a boy or girl then why not take a look at flemish giant rabbit lifespan, or is rabbit safe?
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Bachelor of Arts specializing in English, Master of Arts specializing in English
Rajnandini RoychoudhuryBachelor of Arts specializing in English, Master of Arts specializing in English
With a Master of Arts in English, Rajnandini has pursued her passion for the arts and has become an experienced content writer. She has worked with companies such as Writer's Zone and has had her writing skills recognized by publications such as The Telegraph. Rajnandini is also trilingual and enjoys various hobbies such as music, movies, travel, philanthropy, writing her blog, and reading classic British literature.
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