The gestation period for rabbits is 30-35. Rabbits do not go into heat like a dog or most other animals, the act of mating causes the female to ovulate and produce eggs. Male and female rabbits should not be housed together, the only time they should be together is to breed.
When a doe reaches about nine months old she is ready to breed, it is important to breed a doe befor she reaches a year old because if she is not the female rabbit will develop fat around her overies and will not be able to get pregnant. The doe should always be taken to the male rabbits cage to breed, breeding should take place rather quickly and and once the male was successful he will fall off the female backwards or to his side. One this happens once or twice remove the doe and place her back in her rabbit cage for a rest, about four to six hours later repeat the process again to help improve odds of the doe rabbit becoming pregnant and having a larger litter. Never rebreed after eight hours, past eight hours and the female rabbit could get pregnant with two litters and both will generaly die.
Twenty eight days after the doe is breed a nest box should be placed in her cage with straw, she will start gathering the straw in her mouth and she will start pulling fur. Most of the fur that she will pull out will be from her chest and stomach area, this allows the bunnies better access to the nipples to ba able to nurse. Most of the time a doe will have her babies a few hours after she begins pulling fur. It is very important to have a nest box, unlike rats and other animals a rabbit will not move her babies around. If there is no nest box or she has the babies outside the nestbox they will crawl away and die, she will NOT move the babies to keep them together. If she does have them out of the nestbox put all the babies in the box as soon as you see them.
The babies are born hairless and blind, within a couple days they will be covered in fuzz and should open their eyes in about ten days. Don't be worried if you do not see the doe nursing the babies or laying in the nestbox, the doe will only be in the nestbox long enough to nurse and only nurses once a day usually at night. Around day fourteen the will start coming out of the nest and eating rabbit pellets, even though they are eating some pellets they still need to stay with the mother and nurse.
The kits can be removed from the mother as early as four weeks old, different breeders remove the babies at different times but never before four weeks. Do not remove all the babies from the mother at once, remove a couple one day, then a couple the next day then remove the rest. This gives the mother some time to adjust to not needing to make milk.
To see a one of my New Zealands nest please watch http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=igSOCXfev00
