No signs of puberty?

[Megg]

 My male bunny Tribble is now over a year old, so he has definitely reached sexual maturity by now. The thing is his behavior hasn’t changed much at all aside from being a bit more vocal and feisty at times. There hasn’t been any frustration, humping, anger issues, biting, or any of the problems I have heard about when it comes to males. Did I just get very lucky?

On another note, I still need to have him neutered. Once the procedure is done, won’t be become more calm? 

[Bam]

My male bunny was adult and unneutered when I got him, very calm and never humped or showed any aggression, no spraying, no hormonal behaviour, went in his litterbox etc. I considered myself very lucky. Then after a year living here he suddenly changed. He started to mark f ex the sofa by urine spraying and scattering poop and he followed the dog around, circling her and nipping her until she was quite fed up with him. Why this happened I have no idea. I guess the presence of another furry being (a 14 times his size German Shepherd dog) set off his hormones once he got really accustomed to living here.

This behavioural change showed no signs of receeding, so I had him neutered. A few weeks post-neutering things went back to the way they were.

[Elrohwen]

My male bunny had no behavior changes from the time he was a baby until now, at 4 years old (he was neutered at 5-6 months). Not all bunnies go through puberty or adolescent related behavior changes.

[Baxter n Boos Mom]

I echo the others….neither of my boys exhibited the signs of puberty. But once they became of age, they became very territorial, spraying and pooping everywhere! Drove me nuts, since they’re free range buns. I was so glad once they settled down, after their neuter.

[Megg]

 Thank you all for your responses! It’s good to know I’m not the only one with a tame male bun. Even though his behavior has yet to change, I am still going to get him neutered to be on the safe side. Not to mention I plan on getting another rabbit, so him getting neutered is a must! I just hope I can find an exotic vet in my area who will take good care of him.

[Buckley's Mum]

My little bun is the same, he’s now 8 months old and shows no sign of maturity (must be a male thing in my house!), I took him to the vet at 6 months for a check up and query about neutering and the vet said that if he shows no signs of agression, humping, biting or spraying then why put him through it? If he changes then I’ll revist the neutering option, but until then I’ll just accept him as he is. We have no other animals, so there’s no competition for him, maybe that’s why he’s stayed my “little boy”. x

[FooFoosMommy2]

While we still plan on having Foo checked to see if she needs to be spayed (I think I read or was told here or elsewhere that the vet can do a blood or urine test?) in the near future, she has shown no signs of maturity. We are pretty sure she is old enough, while she was a stray and our vet wasn’t the best at guessing her age, by reading and look at other Netherland dwarfs (since we are pretty sure she’s a Nethie dwart Dutch mix) we’re thinking she has to be at least around a year old. But no spraying, no aggression, no biting, only occasional humping, no tantrums or anything. Even though we aren’t having any problems with Foo, we plan on having her spayed for the health benefits, we want her around and healthy for a long time!

[Eepster]

Porky doesn’t show much in the way of mature male tendencies. Only every now and then he will suddenly smell very male and get very active,but it never lasts long and it never turns into aggression. We suspect it has something to do with smelling the wild rabbits in our yard. 

Porky is at least 2 1/2 years old, since we got him as and adult bunny a couple of years ago, and possibly 3 or 4.  We can’t be sure of his age b/c he was abandoned on the steps of the animal shelter during the night with no history.   

Since we don’t plan to get any more bunnies while we have Porky, and he is good about litter and not aggressive we haven’t had him neutered. It just doesn’t seem worth the risks and pain in Porky’s case.

[Author]

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