exited!!

[jennyrabbit]

I gettin a new baby! 3 month old male Dwarf Hotot, sounds like he is comming tommorow  breeder is a friend of ours, lives in another city, he said he can bring the hotot here on friday…so tommorow I assume he means lol he is kinda breif and ambiguous in his e-mails!. I have never owned a baby rabbit before so this will be new to me, I have also never owned more then 1 bunny at a time! Jenny isnt fixed so they wont be meeting for a little while. I have also never owned a male before, only females!

the names I have in mind so far are:

Peeper                                                                                                                                            

Gaze

Peek

Squint

Spy

anything I need to know bout babys? I know before 4 months they are not supposed to eat veggies? should he be an an alfalfa based pellet? for how long? is my regular hay OK? its Alfalfa/Brome mix(ALL hay here is mixed with alfalfa) or should I add extra alfalfa hay to it? if so when can I wean to just the regular hay?  how much food should I be offering him, I think I read unlimited somewere? if thats the case when would I start measuring food intake? anything else I should know? lol Jenny and Kari are the only rabbits I have ever owned but both were adults when I adopted them so I honestly have no idea about little guys!

[jerseygirl]

You mean we have to wait for pictures? lol I’d say your gonna have fun, he’s more a teenager then a baby. Still a baby in comparison to Jenny.

I do have a suggestion…..you’ve mentioned difficulty in vet care where you are before. Would the guy who has your new rabbit be open to holding him and having him fixed before you bring him home? Or is this guy in the same area as you?

You really will need to look at having him neutered at some point. Rabbits just have a way of getting together. It’s so mystifying.

For feeding him, see if the guy can give you some of his current feed to mix with your feed. He should be fine on the hay you have. You can give unlimited or just put out about how much you can see he’s eating per day. You can start to get him on an adult pellet around 7 months. Check out the diet recommendations under the Bunny Info tab on BB.

[jennyrabbit]

bunny care isnt an issue, I do have a bunny vet that does spay/neuters both Jenny and baby will be getting fixed breeder is in a different city but still same general area, she is a decent bird vet as well, but anything smaller then a rabbit, good luck finding a vet knows anything lol

I did check out the diet page, but its all based on feeding a pellet diet with some veggies for life…I feed a veggie and hay diet alone, no pellets at all, so I am not really sure what info applys lol, he will get pellets as long as he cant eat a full range of veggies yet, but would the timeline remain the same for weaning him off of pellets entirly, or can I wean him off as soon as he is eating a full range of veggies?

[jennyrabbit]

no bunny yet lol, the we have some flooding so he could not get into town. I will have pictures when he does finally arrive! lol I have everything set up ready to go though! he just has to arrive so that I can make a vet appointment for the 2 of them to discuss and arrange their spay/neuter’s :p

[jerseygirl]

I’d go insane. lol

Good to know about rabbit vet. Not so great about lack of vet care for smaller animals given your crew. 😐

There’s not alot of info on pellet free for young ones. I reduced pellet intake from a pretty young age with Jersey. I think you can probably even give a timothy pellet in limited amount and provide lots of the alfalfa/brome mix. Play it by ear and increase pellets if you think he has weight issues. My own vet clinic are advocates of hay only. No pellets. They liken them to junk food. You could probably start introducing greens straight away. You could even use fresh grasses and some veg.

btw,  I like the names Peeper and Peek.  Or even Peek a boo.

[Lintini]

Aww not yet!!! Blast! I would be totally going insane!

I am biased of males now…I don’t wanna make my girls sad but I kiiiiiiinda enjoy my males more… They seem more into me and friendlier. Some people here seem to have really nice female rabbits ….it’s all in the bunny. Just my soft spot for boy buns

Peek sounds cute, he’s gonna be all white with black around the eyes right?

[jennyrabbit]

those are my fav. names too, my mom likes Blink and Flicker :p the problem now is in the 2 of us agreeing on 1 name lol, but we need to actually MEET him first! I mean Jenny was gonna be “Petra” before I met her, but once I met her it just didnt fit.

my vet says the same thing about pellets, she had us switch Kari to pellet free, which is what ultimatly steered me to feeding a pellet free diet to Jenny, but all my research on diets for young bunnies all seemed to be based on pellets, and I have only ever had adult rabbits, so I am totally clueless lol

and yes I am going insane! lol

 

 

Peek sounds cute, he’s gonna be all white with black around the eyes right?

 

I believe so, he only has show rabbits,  and this is one he initally held onto, so I gather its a “to standard” type Hotot lol, havent seen him yet though, 3 month and male is all I know lol

[Beka27]

I would think that he could be on pellets, just regular timothy, until about 9-12 months, gradually reducing the amount each month until he is pellet-free. He can be introduced to veggies right away, but just one new veggie at a time. Within a month or so, if he tolerates it all well, he should be eating a full complement of veggies.

What is your timeline for altering them?  It is dangerous having two unaltered bunnies in the same house.  If Jenny is an adult, I’m surprised she hasn’t already been spayed if you have a rabbit-savvy vet?

[jennyrabbit]

timeline? Jennys is getting spayed first, new boy getting neutered after. Jennys is not spayed by MY choice, vet tried to push spaying her on me, and were I not getting another rabbit, she would remain intact.

[Beka27]

Really? Well, in that case, I’m very glad you’re getting a second! She’ll thank you too from saving her from what can happen if she’s not spayed. :o)

[MirBear]

Posted By jennyrabbit on 09/11/2010 08:26 AM
timeline? Jennys is getting spayed first, new boy getting neutered after. Jennys is not spayed by MY choice, vet tried to push spaying her on me, and were I not getting another rabbit, she would remain intact.

 

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
why is that? i know i have 2 intact females and they have very strong personalities and i love them the way they are. but why wouldn’t you want her fixed?

[jennyrabbit]

not a matter of wanting her intact, its a matter of having absolutly no reason to spay her. serious health problems can happen reguardless of weather or not she is spayed, with only 1 rabbit there is no chance of her reproducing and all these behaviour things of have read about, I have yet to see. she doesnt have a “strong personaility” or however you want to put it, she is in fact extremly friendly and affectionate, never had a nasty spell in her life, she is 100% litter trained, she is not destructive beyond a periodic taste for drywall, she has never bitten, scratched, boxed or growled at me, she comes when she is called and jumps in my lap for pets etc..

[MirBear]

strong personalities as in like the are friendly and dont like hide under the bed type thing – thay arn’t “shy” so to speak.

[jennyrabbit]

ok… you make it sound like strong personailitys are a bad thing and why would I not want her spayed to “fix” that problem…which I dont understand at all?? am I misunderstanding the question?

[MirBear]

Fixed as in spayed. like my carts are both fixed.. i forget sometimes that other people dont talk like that but no i was mentioning how my bunnies are great and have good personalities and they arnt spayed but if i had the resorces ($$) to get them spayed (or i call it being fixed) then i deffinatly would, i was trying to understand why you didnt want to get her spayed. thats all

[jennyrabbit]

oook lol I love the strong personaility, thats why most of my pets are females, so I was sitting here scratching my head, totally confused! spaying was never out of the question, its just that with only 1 rabbit there was no chance of reproducing, and she has never shown even the slightest hint of aggression, so why risk surgery? there was never any doubt that had she shown any hormonal tendancys she would have been spayed, or if I added another rabbit that they would both be spayed/neutered.

[jerseygirl]

Ok, besides neutering to stop reproduction and to help in behavioural issues there is another big reason to have female rabbits fixed. It hasn’t been mentioned here so far. There is a very high risk of unspayed Does of developing uterine cancer. The figure is about 80-85% chance by age 3. I don’t know the exact figure or age anymore but regardless – it’s high! In my opinion, this is the chief reason to spay. If I had a single, well behaved Doe I too would leave her intact but for the cancer risk. That risk outweighs risk of surgery in my mind.

There’s alot of conjecture about this. In the veterinary, house rabbit & rescue community it’s big. In the breeder community, it’s not. It’s either a non issue as rabbits are bred and not expect to live longer lives OR it is purported that it’s a myth. If you’ve not heard of this before, I’ll leave you to look into it and talk to your vet about it.

Now I can get back nagging for updates and possible pictures!

[jennyrabbit]

the breeder said he is going to try to get here either Tuesday or Thursday! Tuesday would be preferable in my mind lol. I have 2 cages set up, one downstairs and 1 upstairs, I am thinking I should probably have him in the upstairs one till he settles? that way he can settle in away from Jenny..we made 1 downstairs so that can get used to each others presence without access to each other(the one downstairs is a large dog crate screened in with fine mesh) and one upstairs so they can have breaks from eachother as well.

believe me I will have a boat load of pictures as soon as he arrives!! this is gonna be a whole new experience for me..I have been doing lots of reading on the different methods for bonding, as I have never owned more then 1 rabbit at a time before! my mom is exited about having a boy, we have only had females before, she was hoping the breeder would say the baby was a boy because she wants to see what the boys are like lol.

I do have a quick question on that line though…I read that the neutered males are stille viable for a month after surgery, but where I read that is was talking about bonding with intact females, if Jenny is spayed first then new boy neutered, do I still have to wait a month after his neuter? like do all his hormones take a while to settle down, or is it just the viable thing?

[Beka27]

If she is spayed first, she won’t have the “equipment” to get pregnant. So the new bunny still being intact will not factor in as far as pregnancy goes. It is still a good idea to wait at least a few weeks after he is neutered to start bonding. This gives him plenty of time to heal and for his hormones to be reduced.

[jennyrabbit]

lol well obviously she cant get preggers if she is spayed lol that why I want her spayed first then him neutered, I just wasnt sure if there were other reasons for waiting a month after he is neutered to start bonding or if I can start bonding them as soon as he recoveres :p

[LoveChaCha]

I’ve read it is a good thing to wait a month after the spay/neuter is done with to start bonding.

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