Sexing At 12 Days

Once upon a time, I could sex kits reliably at 10 days old.  These days, I'm not as good, but maybe with practice I can get it down again.  You may remember that I sexed Chesna's and Lisi's litters at 1 day old.  Let's see how I'm doing (if I'm sexing right at the 12-day mark).

Z1: Day 1 thought "Doe?" Day 12 looks to be buck

Z2: Day 1 thought "Buck?"  Day 12 looks ambiguous

Z3: Day 1 thought "Buck?" Day 12 definitely doe.

C1: Day 1 thought "Doe?" Day 12 ambiguous

C4: Day 1 thought "Buck" Day 12 leaning toward doe

C6: Day 1 thought "Buck". Day 12 looks like doe.

C7: Day 1 thought "Buck". Day 12 looks ambiguous.

C8: Day 1 thought "Buck?". Day 12 looks like doe.

Cs 2, 3, 5 may have gotten mixed up.
Originally thought all bucks.
Day 12, looks like 1 doe, 2 bucks.

OK, so I guess I'm still working on it.  On some of the obvious day 12s that don't match the original guess, I can see where I was wrong.  We'll check again another week to see if we're getting any better.  This just goes to show how difficult sexing kits can be--I've been doing this for 15 years, and I still have problems.

In case you're wondering about why I try to sex so early, I do this so that I can confirm sales and availability to buyers as soon as possible.  Many people cite that "something can happen," but I've very rarely lost kits after 9 days old, and I can usually tell by day 3 which ones are likely to die.  By "rarely" I mean I can count the number of kits lost at those ages on one hand.  So, my thinking is that the younger I can accurately determine sex, the sooner I can confirm availability for interested buyers.  I still won't sell the kits until they're 8 weeks old, but if I can give the buyers a month heads up that I do indeed have the rabbits they want, then that gives the buyers a month to prepare.

I also took a video of sexing kits at this age to demonstrate just how difficult it can be.  I'll upload it, soon, but right now my internet connection is just a bit slow.