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Rabbit pups, Oryctolagus cuniculus, are nursed only for about 3min once every 24h, and we have previously reported indirect evidence of strong competition among littermates for the mother's milk. In the present study, we examined the nature of this competition more closely. In experiment 1, we investigated the temporal pattern of milk intake during nursing and found that pups obtain almost all milk available to them each day during the second minute of a 3-min nursing event. In experiment 2, we investigated the availability of milk across the eight nipples and found a tendency for more milk to be available from the two middle pairs. In experiment 3, we observed the behaviour of pups beneath the mother during nursing and found no evidence of a fixed ‘teat order,’ of overt aggression, or of pups displacing one another from nipples. However, the results confirmed previous findings of a positive correlation between …