Sexual exhaustion in White New Zealand male rabbits of different ages

Sexual exhaustion was studied in hybrid White New Zealand rabbits of different ages, for this purpose six young rabbits from 6 to 12 months of age, and six adult rabbits of 14–20 months of age were selected. Sexually receptive females were taken to the male’s cage, for a period of 4 min, if copulation was not performed, the observation was then considered finished. If the male mounted within this period of time, the mounted female was immediately replaced by another female and 4 min of exposure time to the male were reinitiated, and repetitions were conducted until the male that was being studied refused to mount a new female at which time the male was considered to be sexually exhausted. Young rabbits mounted and ejaculated 9–10 times before sexual exhaustion. Adult rabbits showed a fluctuation of between 6 and 8 mounts per ejaculations before refusing another mount. The statistical analysis with a Mann–Whitney U-test, showed that the Rank sum for group A was 57, while for group B was 21. The U-value was 0.0 and the adjusted Z −2.9943. A significant difference was observed between groups with a value of P=0.00275. In the present study it was demonstrated that there is an influence of age on sexual behavior of rabbits.