Separating my rabbits has really upset one of them.

[MichaelK]

I bought two baby rabbits about 6 months ago and the breeder believed them both to be female. However about two weeks back I discovered a nest of kits in the hutch. Now while I’m waiting for the vet’s appointment to have Gwaine (my male rabbit) desexed I’ve separated the two of them. I’m keeping Morgana (my female rabbit) and the litter of kits in their playpen and Gwaine in their hutch. 

Morgana’s doing alright because she has the litter to take care of and keep her distracted but Gwaine is really distressed and lonely. I’ve made him some new toys, bought him his favourite food and taken him out of the hutch for extra hugs and petting but nothing seems to cheer him up. He’s still eating, although not as much as he used to. He mostly just lays down and stares off into space all day, even when I hold him he mostly just sits there without moving though he still licks my chin. 

The vet can’t see him until next week (I don’t want to go somewhere else, since this vet is agreed to be the best one in my area) and even after he’s desexed I’ve been told they’ll need to stay separated for a week or two. Is there anything I can do to help him adjust with being separated for so long from his lifelong friend? They’ve never been apart in their lives and it’s clearly distressing him. 

I tried giving them brief visits together, but I have to separate them again very quickly as he always wants to try to mate with her again so I haven’t been able to give them almost any time together.

[tobyluv]

I think the only thing you can do for Gwaine is to spend as much time with him as possible. Do not let him be with Morgana even for a second. A rabbit can get pregnant again right after giving birth. Hopefully, nothing happened in the visits that they had, otherwise, you will be faced with another litter soon.

After Gwaine is neutered, he will have to be kept separate from Morgana for a full month since she isn’t spayed. It can take a month for all of the sperm to be flushed from his body. If Morgana was spayed, they could probably be reunited after 2 weeks, but you can’t take that chance now.

It really is best for females to be spayed too, due to the high incidence of uterine cancer. And having both rabbits spayed and neutered is the first step in bonding. Since your rabbits are adults now, you may have to go through bonding sessions when you put them back together. An unspayed female, with all her hormones, may be inclined to get aggressive and possibly fight. Rabbits can severely injure each other when fighting.

Here are 2 good articles on bonding:

https://binkybunny.com/BUNNYINFO/tabid/53/CategoryID/9/PID/940/Default.aspx

http://rabbit.org/faq-bonding-multiple-rabbits/

[MichaelK]

I intend on having Morgana spayed as well but the vet says I need to wait until the kits are fully weaned off her milk, so for now it’s just Gwaine’s turn. Then Morgana’s turn once she stops nursing. Then once they’re sixteen weeks old I’ll be desexing the kits. It’s going to be expensive, but the vet has given me a bit of a discount to help out and my parents have offered to help with the cost of the desexing and vaccinations so that I don’t have to try to cover it all on my student payments.

Fortunately these two both have very gentle personalities, so I’m hoping that they’ll cope well with being reintroduced.

Also some good news, I found a way to cheer Gwaine up. I gave him a stuffed animal last night after I posted this to keep him company, and while at first he looked at me like I was crazy now he’s started dragging it around with him to keep him company and sits with it while he plays with his toys. It’s made him a lot more active again and he was very excited this morning when I gave him a food treat, so it seems to have helped with his mood a lot.

[tobyluv]

It’s good that you found something to make Gwaine happier! Yes, you would have to wait unti Morgana’s babies are weaned before she can have her surgery. Since rabbits can reproduce at such a young age, you probably should separate the babies by gender when they are around 12 weeks old, just to be sure. Males can usually be neutered earlier than females, whenever their testicles have descended. You may have to wait longer than 16 weeks to spay the females. Some vets don’t like to do that until they are closer to 6 months old. And it’s possible that some of the males might not be ready at 16 weeks either, but that’s easy to tell by a visual check.

[MichaelK]

Thankyou for the advice.

It looks to me like I’ve got three males and one female with the kits, though I’m not entirely sure. I’ll be able to be certain about the kits’ gender by twelve weeks though, since the vet is going to give them their vaccinations at 10 weeks and should be able to confirm that I’ve identified their gender correctly at the same time. My parents gave me our old family rabbit hutch, so now I’ve got two hutches and the playpen which gives me plenty of places to keep the rabbits separate until they’ve all been desexed.

[vanessa]

How did you come up with those names?
🙂
I have a bunny named Guinevere, another is Morgana, one passed away was Merlin, and another is Avalon. All from the TV show Merlin.

[jerseygirl]

Good for you in planning the desexing of all these rabbits. You have a lot on your plate but you’re really stepping up!
This happened to a friend of mine and unfortunately,the buck did impregnate the doe straight after she had birthed the first litter. I really hope this isn’t the case for you! That was 6 or so years ago now but it certainly was a crash course on rabbits for her. The original pair are still happily bonded. : )
Did you happen to let the breeder know you ended up with a male and female? I know sexing rabbits can sometimes be tricky but as a breeder, you would hope they’d have a better handle on it.

It’s great you’ve found a way to help Gwaine. I was going to suggest setting him up alongside Morgana and the kits so they could lie together on either side of a barrier. It might be tempting fate though.

[MichaelK]

Posted By vanessa on 3/12/2016 9:55 PM

How did you come up with those names?
🙂
I have a bunny named Guinevere, another is Morgana, one passed away was Merlin, and another is Avalon. All from the TV show Merlin.

They’re named after the characters from the King Arthur stories, when I found out their breed was called “Old English” it just felt right. I liked the TV show as well and liked the relationship between Gwen and Morgana in the early seasons of the show, so back when I thought that I had two girl bunnies it seemed like a good set of names.

Gwaine was one of the knights of the round table. When I found out that Guinevere was a boy, one of my friends suggested Gwaine since I was always calling him Gwen anyway.

[MichaelK]

Posted By jerseygirl on 3/13/2016 9:34 AM

Good for you in planning the desexing of all these rabbits. You have a lot on your plate but you’re really stepping up!
This happened to a friend of mine and unfortunately,the buck did impregnate the doe straight after she had birthed the first litter. I really hope this isn’t the case for you! That was 6 or so years ago now but it certainly was a crash course on rabbits for her. The original pair are still happily bonded. : )
Did you happen to let the breeder know you ended up with a male and female? I know sexing rabbits can sometimes be tricky but as a breeder, you would hope they’d have a better handle on it.

It’s great you’ve found a way to help Gwaine. I was going to suggest setting him up alongside Morgana and the kits so they could lie together on either side of a barrier. It might be tempting fate though.

Thanks. I’m still not sure if I’ll end up keeping them all here as their forever home or try to find new places for them (six rabbits is a lot to take care of on my own), but I want to do everything I can to look after them while I have them. I’d originally wanted to desex both my bunnies back when I thought they were both girls to reduce the risk of cancer, but I thought I had more time to arrange it.

I’m hoping Morgana’s not pregnant again, she’s not really showing any signs of it but it’s hard to be sure. I’ll know before too long though, since when I checked online it looks like their gestation period is only about a month. 

Yeah I was surprised too that the breeder didn’t spot it. I let them know through the pet store that arranged the sale. Next time I get bunnies I’ll go through the breeder directly to make sure I find someone that I can know personally, but I wasn’t planning on getting rabbits until I fell in love with these two walking past the pet store every day for weeks and seeing them in the window.

[MichaelK]

Latest update: Gwaine is just back from the vet as of yesterday from his surgery. I am constantly astounded by my vet and her level of care and professionalism. She gave me good answers to every question I had, talked about different rabbit-conferences she’d been to, provided painkillers for Gwaine automatically as part of the standard cost of the desexing and had very reasonable prices. She assured me that anything done as follow-up to the surgery would be completely free and encouraged me to err on the side of caution and bring him back in if I was worried about anything. While he was in surgery she even set up times for me to phone the nurses and check in on how he was doing.

He’s doing just fine though. I was worried when he licked his surgery site but he just moved straight on past it, he was just including it in his cleaning routine without worrying about the stitches. He seemed a little bit woozy while coming off the anesthetic but he’s eating, playing with his toys and moving around without problem. I was able to hug him without it seeming to hurt him and he’s been very cooperative about taking his oral medication.

He’s still a little bit lonely at being separated but he seems to be handling it alright now that he has his “pet leopard” that I gave him. It’s fun watching him groom his new friend (though he always looks a bit put out that the stuffed toy doesn’t groom him back). The vet’s agreed that I should keep him separated until all the sperm is out of his system, but I’m looking forward to when I can reintroduce him to his family.

[tobyluv]

That sounds like a very good rabbit vet! It would be great if there were more like her.

I’m glad that Gwaine did well with his surgery and is getting back to his normal routine.

[MichaelK]

Yeah, it was well worth the wait to get to see her.

[Beka27]

So glad to hear the surgery went well! The time apart will pass quickly… he will have time to heal, and mama will have time to take care of her babies! This is just a short term inconvenience and then he can be with his love again!

[Author]

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