I waited months and months for my rabbit Dusty to mature so she could have babies but when I researched into breeding rabbits I found out it wouldn't be so easy!

Because female rabbits have no menstrual cycle, like humans, there is no way to know when they're in heat. You'll just have to breed your rabbits and if no signs of pregnancy show then you can try again in a few days.

Rabbits become sexually mature at 8/10 months for a doe and 7 months for a buck. Pregnancy lasts for about 28 to 34 days and the litter size varies from 4 to 12 kits depending on the size of the rabbit.

Kits are born in the night and each of them is born with it's placenta (afterbirth). The does should eat this and if not you can just remove it from her cage. If any of the babies are deformed or have problems with anything then it's up to you to decide whether you want them to grow up and be in pain then die young or if you want to get them put down (you can also get rid of them yourself but i can't bear the thought of having to do that) to give the other babies a better chance of survival.

The babies are born blind and hairless and should not be touched for 72 hours (unless of course they have strayed out of the nest). Their eyes open at around 8-10 days and they can be separated from they're mother at 5-8 weeks but the longer the kits are with their mum the better so I suggest leaving the babies with their mum for a full 2 months.

When it's time to wean the baby rabbits they will start to copy their mum and eat solid food. You had better increase the amount of food you give so there's enough for the growing babies and the mum (you should be doing this gradually over her whole pregnancy.)

If a false pregnancy should occur then once it has finished you can rebreed that doe. In a false pregnancy (which lasts roughly 14-18 days) the doe starts producing milk and building nests - all the signs of pregnancy but without the 'giving birth' part!

You can imagine my excitement when Dusty started to get fat and produce milk! Then when she started building nests I couldn't believe my luck then weeks went by and nothing came so I was quite disappointed but I'm not sure if I would've been able to handle so many rabbits!