How To Sex A Rabbit

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Sexing rabbits can be incredibly easy when they’re older, but extremely difficult when they’re babies because everything is so much smaller. All of these pictures are very large so if you click on them, you’ll be able to see the larger and much more close-up version.

First, flipping your rabbit onto it’s back and giving it a minute will put them into a trance. It’s incredibly cute when they do this, and one of my rabbits happens to like it so much that he’ll fall asleep and snore away – letting you do just about anything to him. The more you handle your rabbits like this, the more receptive they’ll be to it.

When you have your rabbit in a trance, or at least comfortable and not fighting with you, find their genitals and push lightly on either side of it to get them to pop out a bit, this way you get a better look at it. Does will have a slit ‘|’ bucks will have an oreo-shaped ’0′

This is my doe, Dutchess. A doe won’t have anything around her genital area. You want to press your fingers on either side of the opening there.

See how it pops out a little bit? You can get a better look here. The slit ‘|’ shows that she’s indeed a doe. This is on a full grown girl, but when they’re younger it’s harder to tell. You have to look closely but there will almost always be a distinct slit or 0 shape by 6-7 weeks (at least in New Zealands, and some people like to take longer but I separate the does and buck at that age).

Here is a young doe, about 7 weeks old.

You can clearly tell there’s a slit but at this stage, bucks can also look like a doe. When you’ve done this enough you’ll be able to see the slit vs the O shape.

Here is my buck, Prince Charming. Push down the same as you did for the female, and this is what you get. It’ll be very obvious when it’s a boy (an adult buck). Younger bucks are much harder to tell because they won’t pop out quite as much as they do in an adult.

The boys will have a pink sac on either side of the genital area. Most of the time those are harder to spot at a younger age.

As younger bucks (6-7 weeks) they won’t pop out like this, which is what makes it hard to tell between a doe and a buck because they’ll look the same at that age. You can see the ‘O’ shape is starting to form more clearly. It’s very different from the slit of a doe.

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