Neutering & housing questions

[Midorisu]

Hi, I’ve a 5 month old male bunny who was recently living mostly free range (in a hallway & bathroom) he was only caged during the night in a plastic bottomed petstore cage. However he recently has hit the teenage years hard He’s become obsessed with scratching at the doors to the rest of the apartment & the rooms are very much not bunny friendly so off limits to him & no matter what he keeps clawing the door & carpet. I live in a rented apartment so I took him to be neutered convinced it would solve these issues, but when I got to our small animal specialist vets I was informed neither of his testes have descended & only was was ‘beginning’ to. I was told to come back in a month or two so I’m stuck with a terrible tantrum bunny until then, has anyone else any experience with this sort of thing? How long do testes normally take to fully descend in a bunny? He now is being primarily caged & is let out for just 4/5 hours daily which I’m feeling terrible about but I bought storage cubes & constructed a cage that is three grids wide & long with a two grid shelf on top of the square, however he attacks the door furiously whenever I shut it, he seems to love the cage preferring to spend his time chilling in there when the door is open but hates when it’s shut & I’m worried he’ll hurt himself or come to view it as ‘prison’. I cannot make it larger because of the awkward shape of the hallway, would it be better to build up? Each grid is 35cm across. Also worryingly he refuses to use the litter boxes inside his cage, I’ve placed two with soiled litter to try encourage him to use them. He will only use the one outside his cage & will hold on to his business all whilst we sleep/work & then dash for the litterbox once the door opens. Can he develop problems from this? We have taken the litterbox from outside & placed it inside his cage but to no avail it’s the location because he’ll go there whether there’s a box or not. Any advice or similar experiences would be great to hear, thanks!

[kirstyol]

Yes that’s exactly what happened with Bramble we actually thought he was a girl because he had no visible testicles and he is quite fluffy so it was hard to see anything else, at 15 weeks I made a new bunny check up/pre spay appointment and the vet told me that we couldn’t have her spayed because she was actually a he! His testicles just hadn’t descended yet. He was eventually neutered at 22 weeks but being honest it could probably have been done a bit earlier but I wasn’t very well for a few weeks before hand and wasn’t really up to looking after a post-neuter bunny.

When he was in the smaller cage where did he go to the toilet? is there any way you can put the smaller cage inside the bigger one with the door open?

We still cant let Bramble out unsupervised and he is now 7 months old, like your bun he is confined most of the day in his big pen during the day and in his cage at night but he does get to free roam as much as we are able, usually later on in the day after I have been at uni.

The only thing I can think of to maybe make him more comfortable in his cage is maybe surrounding it with pen, that way you can leave the cage door open, but he is still confined. Bramble sometimes goes a bit mad when he gets put in his cage, I am working on making space for a cage like yours with the cubes now that I have finally found somewhere that sells them here reasonably cheap.

[Cottontail]

Peter didn’t fully mature until 25 weeks (6 months, 1 week), but the vet even mentioned that that was a bit of a late bloomer. He was neutered almost week later but at least he recovered very quickly.
As for the litterbox situation I agree with kirstyol; we ended up putting the main litter box in Peters enclosure at first (before he was free-roam) because he didn’t like to use it in his cage. Like your bun, he would hold it in and then pee a river and build a mountain once he was far enough away from his bed. I’m not sure exactly how you’ve got things set up, but if the cage is in the hallway, is there any way to block off ends of the hall with child-gates? That may allow him some running room, and access to the outside box.

[Midorisu]

Hi thanks for the reply, Sampras is equally as fluffy so it’s impossible to tell & also he hates being lifted & is super squirmy! When he was in the smaller cage he would hold it as well, but we didn’t think it was too bad because we usually put him in around 12 & then when one of us got up to go to the bathroom around 5 we’d let him out again but we can’t do this now because he savages the carpet & door & the area he’ll only pee is on the bottom shelf of our shoe rack so impossible to incorporate into his cage. Also the pen is a good idea but unfortunately wouldn’t work because his cage currently takes up so much room that with a pen we wouldn’t be able to enter the bathroom or leave the apartment. I had him out longer tonight & he went back in his cage no problem & is happily napping so I’m hoping that maybe he’ll just get used to not being free range anymore.
Also do you live in the UK because I’m from Ireland & could only find the storage cubes online for €45 for 20, it’s ridiculous, I’m so jealous of how cheap they are in the states!

[Midorisu]

I tried using some spare storage grids to protect the door but then he’d burrow the carpet but the child gate is a good idea, maybe if I combine them with some outdoor rugs to protect the carpet it might work! Thanks for the ideas

[kirstyol]

Yes I am in the uk and it took me weeks to find somewhere that did the storage cubes at a reasonable rate. I came across a company that does packs that you can either make your own, or they can give you a pack to make one of their designs which all looked pretty good. I am unsure if I am allowed to post a link here but the company is called Grednle enterprises and they are based in the uk so you should be able to google them. Their prices are the best I have seen and because you can pick one of their designs you don’t need to worry about not having enough cubes to make what you want. You do have to provide your own flooring but that shouldn’t be a problem, I haven’t ordered mine yet because I am trying to get a day where we are both off so that we can move furniture around and measure things but I am really excited to get one hopefully in the next week or two

[DethronedbyQueenB]

On another note:

I’m a landlord/owner for apt complexes.
PLEASE do not let bunbun tear up the apt because it may cause your landlord to squelch further tenants from being allowed to have them.
Door jams and carpet damage can run into the thousands of dollars.
One tenant can scare us away from ever risking a repeat performance.

[JackRabbit]

Keep an eye out for those testicles! Sometimes bunnies will suck them back in when you try to take a peak so you may have to be sneaky about it. From what I’ve heard, once a bunny starts spraying, his testicles have likely descended. This held true for Moshi (vet said he could neuter him once he could get hold of his testicles), and Moshi was definitely one to suck them back in!

[Midorisu]

Thanks they sound great I’ll check them out

Don’t worry he’s not let out unsupervised now & underneath his cage is a giant sisal rug so he doesn’t damage flooring, he’s very well behaved once we’re in the room as he prefers to beg for treats & groom us lol

Actually after Christmas we’ll be moving in with my boyfriends parents so no more landlord but We have to be just as careful with their belongings too obviously

[Author]

Messages