Do spayed rabbits still have sexual tendencies?

[Brittanybunnyjones]

This may be a stupid question but I figured I’d ask! Plus humans and animals are different..I know if a female has her uterus taken out she probably still can have sexual relations and feelings with another partner. Is this the same with rabbits?
My one year old female rabbit was spayed when she was 6 months. And I currently have a 4 month male rabbit. He has been humming a lot today which I know is a sign of happiness or sexual excitement. He does it whenever she gets close to his gate where he plays. So my question is does this phase her you think? I heard somewhere that the sounds the dominant rabbit makes can made the female go “bonzo” lol.
I’ll repeat my question again just to clear it up….
Does my female rabbit still get “sexual feelings” even after she has been spayed?
This seems like a creepy question! Aghhhh

[Bam]

If your rabbit has had a full spay (it’s actually a neuter or castration), not only her uterus but also her ovaries are removed and thus she nolonger ovulates.

If only the uterus is removed, there is still production of sex-hormones in the gonads, but the bunny can’t become pregnant. Without sex-hormones, sex is of very little interest to a bunny. She may become very annoyed with the male’s efforts at courtship though, so you shouldn’t try and bond them until the boy too is desexed. 

I think full spays are done routinely nowadays in most places, but I have heard tales of some shelters doing only partial spays. 

It’s not a creepy question, sex-drive is very important to take into account when you are dealing with bunnies. 

[Brittanybunnyjones]

Thank you!!! I’m pretty sure she had a full spay I should call the vet and ask. The weird thing is she was soooo curious of him when I brought him home and he was so mean to her. She still is curious and now he’s starting to become excited around her. I still don’t want to bond them she got hurt bad by him the first time.

[Bam]

Have him neutered, wait .like a month, then start bonding. After a neuter, a bunny will go through some form of “post-neuter-craze”, where he gets hormone-spikes and may exhibit even more intense sexual behaviors (with tereritoriality, marking, aggression, courtship and humping) than he did pre-neuter. This phase lasts 2-8 weeks, most often 2-4.

If he hurt her when they met you may be in for a bit of a difficult bonding, but since he was intact and she wasn’t, they were not on the same wave-lenght so to speak. Rabbits that are to be bonded should always be desexed. For bunnies that are difficult to bond, stress-bonding is often recommended. You can read more about that in our bonding-section.

[LBJ10]

Just because she is spayed doesn’t mean she wouldn’t be excited to see a new bunny. If she wants a friend, then it’s normal for her so be curious about him. And the boy, well, he’s young and unneutered so of course he is going to show interest. You’re not going to know if they are going be bond though until after he is neutered because there will be only one thing on his mind whenever he is with your girl.

[jerseygirl]

  

[Brittanybunnyjones]

What do you mean? I never said that? None of us in this forum said that quote. I’m pretty sure we all love our rabbits.

[Brittanybunnyjones]

Yes she was extremely curious of him at first. Their play areas are close and he now seems to be the interested one and she doesn’t care one bit. My vet said I should wait till my boy (Binx) is at least 6 months. They say waiting longer is better, obviously not toooooo long though! So after that a month after I will try bonding them again. But I’m not 100% because I really don’t want him attacking her again.

[BB Administrator]

I do believe there has been a misunderstanding with JerseyGirls post. I have a copy of the original post and I see nothing wrong with it. Could you be mistaking her signature, which states…Whoever says “It’s only a rabbit” has obviously never loved a rabbit, with post content?

That line is just her signature and is not part of her post or directed to you in any way. I am figuring JG just deleted her own post text since you seemed insulted by it…even if there was nothing wrong with it as she is not one to ever intentionally insult anyone and is very sensitive. So I feel confident this was a misunderstanding.

Helloworld!!

[jerseygirl]

@Brittanybunnyjones, so sorry!
As BB said, that is just my signature quote that’ll shows after every post.

I did reply to something bam wrote about desexing. I deleted my comment as I felt it was going off topic. I should have written “deleted text” instead of leaving blank. My apologies.

Thanks BB.

[Brittanybunnyjones]

Jersey girl, it’s fine I’m sorry! I thought you were one of those random people who come to stir the pot :p on yahooanswers a lot of people are like that. I’m new to this website anyways. I wonder why it still shows your message.

[Bam]

Brittanybunnyjones, I member can’t delete a post, just edit the text in the text-box. That’s why Jersey’s signature still shows. It’s basically a rule to prevent older threads from becoming completely incomprehensible if a member should choose to edit out all his/her old posts. At least it can then be seen that there once was a post.

I know exactly the type of “pot-stirrers” you talk about, they’re a nuisance and we don’t allow them on the BB forums. But Jersey certainly isn’t one of those, she’s always kind and helpful. So I hope all is good now?

As for your bunnies, have you asked your vet why he/she doesn’t want to do the neuter until your boy is 6 months? I know testosterone is vital for the proper development of skeletal muscle, but I don’t know any other reasons. The House Rabbit Society (a very reputable source) says 3,5 months or when the testes drop. I’m only asking because in your case it seems very impractical to have to wait since you already have another bunny and he’s shown aggression towards her. Aggression doesn’t always go away with a neuter if it’s become a “habit”, whereas the sexual behaviours (humming, grunting, circling, nipping, mounting, pee-and poop-marking) generally go away.

[jerseygirl]

Posted By Brittanybunnyjones on 10/05/2015 10:48 AM
Jersey girl, it’s fine I’m sorry! I thought you were one of those random people who come to stir the pot :p on yahooanswers a lot of people are like that. I’m new to this website anyways. I wonder why it still shows your message.

Lol! I have low tolerance for “pot stirrers”. (Though I do admit to sometimes teasing regular members on here – in a friendly way)
You’ll find Binky bunny members are pretty supportive.
Looks like I inadvertently took this thread off topic after all!
Anyway, a belated Welcome to you.

[Megan143]

Brittanybunnyjones, I would like to share my recent experience. Although it might be more info than the answer you were looking for, but you might see bunnies humping even after successful bonding and hope my story will give you some hope

I live in Australia and it started to get warm about 2 months ago in my state. This is the first spring since we had two bunnies – we had our boy bun 18 months ago and our new girl 6 months ago. Both bunnies were desexed as soon as it was possible for them and their hormone were settled down when they were first introduced. In spring last year our boy was the only bun in the house, spring caused nothing special in his behaviour. When the girl bun arrived in autumn, he did some territorial chasing and humping, but after 3 days of bonding they became best friends and we could only see grooming and snuggling. He’s more the boss bunny but would still groom her a bit… Until this spring! The boy started to sniffing the girl’s bottom a lot and trying to hump her tirelessly! sometimes it’s very forced, but sometimes he would groom her so much then chinned her body then start the humping. His legs are too short for her (they’re similar size but she has high arch), so he always have to grab her fur with his teeth to keep on top of her. Sometimes he would bite her back and bottom a bit, occasionally he would dig her. Our girl is such a innocent sweetie she didn’t seem to know what’s happening to her. I don’t think she would ever enjoy sex like human do, but I don’t think the sex itself bothers her much either, it’s more the fur pulling and biting that annoys her. she tolerated him mostly then run away. My heart broke every day to see chunks of hair in the cage and I tried my best to separate them whenever I saw the humping in action. Sometimes I picked him up when he humped, I could hear him breathing super heavy and his ears were very hot. I bought a similar sized stuffed toy and rubbed her smell on it hoping he could use that as a placebo but he just threw the toy away like he was jealous. He never humps our legs or anything else either, he was only interested in the girl she wasn’t stressed because very soon she would jump onto his floor again and try to snuggle; seemed like she found a couple of ‘safe places’ where he can’t get to her so seemed like they found a way to make their dynamic work. But I still planned on taking them to the vet as soon as I see any distress
My fiance moved the bunny cage to his study and told me his observation. He said if he just sat there doing his own things on his computer, making not much noise or show no obvious tendency to go near the cage, the bunnies will act like usual, eating, sleeping, snuggling and grooming, but whenever my fiance needed to get up, as soon as he walked towards the cage, our boy bun will start the humping. So again, it’s almost like jealousy, like it’s a competition, that our boy thinks the human and the toy are competitors, that we might try to mate with his girlfriend?? So he had to have her before everyone else get to him?

I got the conclusion, in our case the cause of the humping is a mixture:
– there’s the physical factor: his hormone or sexual drive is a bit more active, maybe she was releasing some scent as well in spring
– then there’s the behavioral factor: he think she’s his and only his, he gets aggressive when competitors were present; and on the other hand, he still loves us human, he knows we’re the food/pat providers, his attention craving made him excited that also triggers the humping

In the end, I like to give you the good news,his humping stopped just 2 days ago. when it’s treats time or free roaming time, he seemed is purely excited about the freedom or yummy food again. It was such a relief. What’s more, in average he’s grooming her a lot more.
I hope it won’t happen next year that they’re both older, but if it happens again I will know it won’t last forever

[LBJ10]

There is also dominance humping. Even bonded pairs will suddenly break out into humping sprees. Leopold does this occasionally. Something gets into his little bunny head that Wooly needs to be told who’s boss. Not completely on topic, but something to keep in mind when bonding two spayed/neutered bunnies.

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