Bunny Neuter?

[Merlinthegreat]

 Hi guys. I have a 5 month old male holland lop who will be neutered September 6th! This is the first time I have had bunny neutered! What should I expect? Will he need medication? What is “normal” and what isnt? Will I need to have my females spayed too? I read that its very dangerous to have females spayed. When will be the “right time” to re-introduce him to the females? Should I just wait until they are spayed so they can be introduced? Sorry for all the questions I just want to be prepared!

[Sarita]

Males usually recover very quickly from a neuter – your vet may give some pain meds if needed but many times the males bounce back right away.

Spaying females is more invasive but it’s not very dangerous if the vet is experienced – they do take more time to recover and definitely need pain meds and quite time.

[Valkyrie]

I just had my bunny neutered a month ago at the same age. My vet did supply some painkillers for the first three days post-op.

Most of my difficulties centered around my bun bouncing back too quickly. He was a little dopey when I brought him home, but by the next day he was trying to bounce around like normal. I was advised to put him in a smaller cage and take away anything he can climb, but then he got bored and ripped his stitches out. And he happened to do it on a Saturday when his vet was away. I had to take him to another vet and pay $145 for them to glue the incision and give me antibiotics to take home (which was more than his neuter cost). The glue didn’t hold, so my regular vet stapled him (no cost because he was neutered there and this was included in their after care). I also put him back in the larger cage and gave him his toys back to distract him. Thankfully that lasted and his incision healed fine. If I were to do it again, I wouldn’t have put him in the smaller cage and taken his toys. Ya, he may have still chewed his stitches, but maybe he wouldn’t have been so persistent if he wasn’t bored.

Now he is one of those rare cuddly bunnies, but with all the handling, traveling to and from the vet (30 minutes each way), checking his incision daily, and medications twice a day, he got really grumpy. I have heard its normal for them to get grumpy due to the hormone changes that happen after surgery, but he was outright mad at me. He growled at me whenever I went near his cage and my husband had to take over his care. But if my husband put him on the couch he would still snuggle up to me; guess I wasn’t a threat there. It has been one month since his surgery and he is completely back to his normal personality now.

As far as your other buns, consensus seems to be to wait one month after his neutering before reintroducing him to his ladies. The four vets we saw and the rescues I was in contact with before getting my second bun said that this is the magic length of time before his hormones settle and he stops producing sperm. It is also highly recommended to spay your female rabbits, it is actually more important than neutering a male. Rabbits have a high risk of uterin and ovarian problems and 80% of unspayed females don’t live past 3 because of it. People neuter male rabbits to stop behavioural issues, but for females there is also important medical reasons. And unfortunately it is dangerous to have any rabbit spayed or neutered because it is surgery. You will probably have to listen to a scary lecture and then sign a waiver when you take your male in; I did. I almost ran back out the door but I had to keep telling myself it is for the best and I needed to trust the research I did before choosing my bunny vet.

[Rufus]

I second the idea of keeping him somewhere safe after the neutering. I just had my bun neutered about 3 weeks ago. It went really well and I wasn’t given any pain meds or antibiotics or anything to take home afterwards. I picked him up at 5pm on the day of the surgery, got up 4 times to check he was eating during the night and by the next morning he was going crazy! You’d think he’d never had a problem in his life. He was binkying around his cage like crazy and crashing into walls. I let him out a bit to see how he’d go and he was jumping onto and off of things way bigger than he ever had before. I was so worried he was going to injure himself and he was really really destructive. Luckily since then he’s calmed way way down and get’s more relaxed all the time. His favourite thing to do now is take naps in my bed. I can’t believe what an amazingly quick behaviour change it’s been!

[MoveDiagonally]

My males recovered very quickly. I always ask for the 3 days of pain meds if they don’t offer. Your male should have zero contact with any female rabbits for 30 days after his neuter. He will still have viable sperm in that time frame and can impregnate lady bunnies.That said, I think it’s difficult and unwise to bond/have rabbits together unless all involved are spayed/neutered.

As Valkyrie said, females have a high chance of uterine cancer when not spayed. When spayed by a rabbit savvy vet the risks are minimal. Female rabbits have a much higher chance of developing cancer than they do of dying in surgery.

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