Page:Care and Management of Rabbits.djvu/193

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LITTERS AND THEIR SIZE

We have already had something to say elsewhere about the size of litters, but this is a matter which cannot be too strongly overemphasized.

The size and the frequency of the litters has everything to do with success in raising rabbits. People often do not stop to take this into consideration.

The rabbit is naturally a very prolific animal. Nature seems to try to compensate for the natural losses due to enemies and other conditions which combine to destroy litters in the natural state by sending a large number of youngsters to the mother doe.

The average litter of the good breeding doe will run all the way from five to thirteen and I have heard of does having as many as fifteen and seventeen at one time. It is nothing out of the way for a doe to have nine at a time.