Rabbit Reproduction Model
extracted from HRS news group
by Dana Krempels, Ph.D

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A single female rabbit can have 1-14 babies per litter, but we'll be conservative and say that the average litter size is six.

We'll also make the assumption (remember, this is just a hypothetical thing) that only *half* of those are females, and we will calculate the potential fecundity of our bunny only from these hypothetical three females per litter. (This is probably a conservative estimate.)

If our "starter bunny" begins reproducing at age of six months (not unreasonable by any stretch), and has babies for seven years (...which she probably won't, if she's having that many babies. She'll probably burn out after 2-3 years. But that's another story), then she'll have, over the course of the first year: 1 mother rabbit x 3 female babies x 12 months = 36 female babies (plus your original mama makes 37)

(I'm going to make an assumption here, and add the new babies to the reproductive group at the beginning of Year Two, at which point they'll be an average of six months old. But this is less than perfect.)

If--starting at the beginning of Year Two --each of *those* female babies produced an average of 3 female offspring per month then by the end of the second year you'd have:

End of Year Two:
37 mother rabbits x 3 female babies x 12 months = 1332 female babies
(+ 37)

End of Year Three:
1332 mother rabbits x 3 female babies x 12 months = 47,952 female babies
(+ 1332)

End of Year Four:
49,284 x 3 x 12 months = 1,774,224 female babies
(+ 49,284)

End of Year Five:
1,823,508 x 3 x 12 months = 65,646,288 female babies
(+ 1,823,508)

End of Year Six:
67,469,796 x 3 x 12 months = 2,428,912,656 female babies
(+ 67,469,796)

End of Year Seven:
2,496,382,452 x 3 x 12 months = 89,869,768,272 female rabbits!

(And we're not even counting the males!)
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