Neutering?

[Rachy1412]

I have two female rabbits, Spayed, but refuse to get along. My eldest rabbit doesn't mind living alone but my other one does. She seems lonely and wants a friend to groom.
Instead of getting another female I thought about getting a male. Now since she is spayed is it still essential to get the male neutered? My sister had a male rabbit in the past that she never got neutered and he was fine, no spraying, no aggression etc. But I guess it depends on the personaility.
I know that spaying females reduces the chance of oviarn(sp?) cancer. So would neutering a male reduce any illnesses?

Oh also, She is about 9-10months old. Would a younger or older male be better? And what size would the cage have to be? At the moment she lives in a 4ft by 4ft cage. She is a drawf (well thats what they said..) and weighs in at about 6lb.

Thank you! xx

[bunnyluv17]

I would definitely get a neutered male, or neuter him when you get him. This helps tone down hormonal behavior like spraying, mounting, aggression, and helps with litter training. If you don't have him neutered, he might never leave your female alone and therefore, could start a fight when she gets sick of him. When both rabbits are fixed it is much easier to bond them. Your best bet would be to take your rabbit to a shelter or rescue and allow her to pick out her own buddy. The age, size, or breed does not matter. Neutering does reduce the risk of testicular cancer, but testicular cancer is not as common as uterine cancer.

At six pounds she is no longer a dwarf, 5-6 pounds is about the average weight for most rabbits ( not including dwarfs or giants).

I would try to add some more space onto the cage, like maybe an upper level. Before putting both rabbits in the same cage (assuming they get along) you need to scrub EVERYTHING really well to remove any rabbit smell. Females can be very territorial and will not want another rabbit invading their space.

[Rachy1412]

Thanks for the info.
The nearest rescue to me is 50minutes to an hour away. Is that too long of a car journey for the rabbits?

[Poohbear]

I do not think so, but I may be wrong. Just pack her in a dog carrier or something else that is big enough to fit a rabbit and put some fleece on the bottom with some food water or some letttuce or carrots and then cover the top with fleece so she does not get cold.

[Rachy1412]

Well I decided to pop in to the rescue first because we couldn't get hold of anyone on the phone. They had only one male rabbit up for adoption! There were four males there but three had be reserved, the other one did not like other animals.

I found another rescue only 10minutes away from here so I will be trying that one sometime this week.

[Furkidsmommy]

[font=Arial]Getting rabbits bonded can be very time consuming. Have you tried for a while with the two females? How long have you had them? I would read this information from [/font][font=Arial]Morfz[/font]
[font=Arial]They have some really good [/font][font=Arial]information[/font][font=Arial]. [/font]

[font=Arial]I would certainly get any future rabbit neutered as mentioned above. [/font]
[font=Times New Roman][font=Arial]If you do get another rabbit would it be possible to take your existing rabbit with you to see how they respond initially? Do not worry about the one hour car ride I used to take my rabbits out for car rides all the time for about an hour a time to get them bonded. One of the many strange things I tried. The car ride in the same carrier is supposed to take their minds of hating each other as they comfort each other in the unusual surroundings. It took me 6 weeks to get my rabbits bonded. I have a male and female both are fixed.[/font] [/font]

[Rachy1412]

Well I Contacted the rescue and she came over with a 6month old neutered male. He was GORGEOUS! A white mini lop. But they didn't seem to hit it off. They were ok with each other untill the male tried to mate with her head. He was so small that he seemed frightened of her.

Tomorrow we are going to the rescue with Smudge to have a look at another older male who does not hump the females. Hopefully we will have better luck with him.

[Rachy1412]

Well the rabbit we were going to see has become ill so we have decided to adopt another one. His name is hotspotch! He is the most Handsom creature I have ever seen. He is 6months old and orginally came from Petsathome. Apparently he was to "old" to sell so they dumped him on her!

He is due to be neutered tomorrow. Now, she said I can have him 10 days after his neuter when he has his stitches taken out. She said he sould start carming down after just 3days! Is this right? When I had my female spayed I was told it could take any where from 1-6months!

[bunnyluv17]

It can take awhile for the hormone levels to completely subside, but every rabbit is different.