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CARE AND MANAGEMENT OF RABBITS
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if permitted to do so. One can even breed them faster than that, but the oftener the rabbits are bred in the space of twelve months, the poorer the offspring. This should appeal to all thinking people as being reasonable. It is a severe drain on any animal to reproduce its kind and the oftener the strain the harder it will be on both parent and offspring.

The average litters run from five to thirteen little rabbits. The rabbit is a nursing animal and because of the inability of the mother doe to properly nurse a whole litter it is necessary to either kill off the poorest of the litter or else use nurse does. It is seldom advisable to allow a mother doe to nurse more than six youngsters and five is even better. For fine breeding stock cut each doe down to three youngsters.

This limitation means that the possibilities of the herd will be considerably less than the claims made by some advertisers who are anxious to deceive the public. It is true that litters run up to thirteen and fifteen at a