Spaying Advice Please

Rabbits Online Forum

Help Support Rabbits Online Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

LalaJ

New Member
Joined
Jan 17, 2017
Messages
1
Reaction score
0
Location
NULL
Hello,
I was hoping that some of you rabbit savvy experts could help me with a choice I am in the process of making.
I have a female rabbit, Bonnie, who will be turning 6 years old this April. I received her mother (Amy) as a gift when I was only 12 years old (and surprise, she gave birth 3 days later).
Unfortunately, the kits we a result of inbreeding, as Amy was in a cage with her brothers at the pet store she came from - like I said, she was given to me, I would have preferred to rescue from a more reputable place. The good news though, was that she only had two kits, and besides being a little odd, they were in good health.
I was able to re home one of the babies, but ended up having to keep the second, who I named Bonnie.
Sadly, Amy passed away last year.
When I had gotten Amy, I didn't know that much about rabbits, let alone did I have enough money to get both Amy and Bonnie spayed.
I've just started my second term at college, and through working, I've managed to save up enough money to potentially get Bonnie spayed.
Like I have said, Bonnie is nearly 6 years old now, and I can assure you that she will never get in contact with an unaltered male rabbit.
She is a very territorial and aggressive rabbit, and seems to be very anxious, even though I have never harmed or even scared her in the past 6 years. I attribute part of this behavior to her being inbred, but I am also aware that this could be a hormonal thing that could, maybe not be entirely solved, but definitely be helped by getting her spayed.
I have tried everything to help her with her behavioral challenges. Since she doesn't like to be held, I have custom built her a large 'cage', with an exit that she can access herself so that she can roam around the room.
Very few things make her happy, but she always binkies when she is alone outside, so I've built her a custom hutch outside for the summer.
And even building these two housing units for her has still cost me less that the estimate that I've received from my local (Ontario,Canada) vet, which was anywhere from $500-700.
She had always been in pretty good health, besides the fact that she is allergic to a handful of foods.
I'm wondering if it would be worth getting her spayed at this age.
I know, it is a very long story, but I really am willing to commit this money to my rabbit if it will better her life. There are so many factors and circumstances involved, and I think her story is fairly unique. I would really like to see Bonnie be happy, and if you think getting her spayed will help her, please let me know!
Thank you,
Larissa
 
I attribute part of this behavior to her being inbred
No. Being friendly, comfortable being handled is a rare bred in and trained trait more common in good pet rabbit lines, anything else is normal rabbit behaviour. Sounds like you've got a healthy, somewhat headstrong girl there, I like those :)

No point about worrying about accidential inbreeding, all our pet rabbits are created this way, no harm in that as long as you don't breed rabbits with genetic issues.

Unspayed rabbits can be very dominated by hormones, well, rabbits evolved for one task over all others - breeding. They are excellent at that, and their hormones more or less (all rabbits are different) drive them craving to be bred or into false pregnancies, some more, others less or not at all.
 
Last edited:
Your rabbit sounds like a totally normal intact rabbit to me. Territorial, agressive and anxious describe a lot of unspayed females (looking at the bright side, you don't say she's dirty - some intact rabbits spray urine EVERWHERE including walls, furniture and people).
Spaying resolves most beharioural issues for rabbits. I don't have any experience with rabbits spayed after their 8th month considering I got all of mine as babies and have always neutered / spayed as soon as possible because they were all MONSTERS (and, like magic, they were all (almost) perfect the day after the operation), but I've heard it works on older rabbits too. It probably won't help with her hate of being picked up, though. My current rabbits tolerate it pretty well even if they don't like it, but I've had a rabbit who was scared of heights and there was nothing you could do to stop him from panicking when his paws left the ground.
I think spaying is worth it if your rabbit is in good health and that you find a trustworthy vet. If only for the reason that she's at an age when risks of ovarian / uterine cancer are very high (she might already have tumors growing that need to be removed - the risk is over 80% after 5 years and it's the main reason why unspayed females almost never make it to their full life-expectancy which is around 9 right now!). After all, rescues spay a lot of older rabbits before putting them for adoption and it generally goes well. Besides, 5 years old really isn't that old. But if you decide to do it, it would be best not to wait too much because the anesthesia gets more risky as the rabbit ages (even though it's pretty safe - I looked it up before getting Aki spayed and the risk is around 0.2 to 0.5 %) and that if tumors appear the cancer can spread and become difficult to fight.
 
So I personally am very pro-spay and neuter, but I would get her spayed if she were mine. As she ages, the risk of uterine cysts, tumors, and ovarian tumors increases every year. She may already have them undetected at this point! The risk of mammary tumors is the same at this point whether you spay her or not, so that is not applicable for her right now. Good luck with this decision!
 
I have to disagree that spaying solves most behavioral issues with rabbits. It's been my experience that some behavioral issues can be resolved if they are hormonally driven, but some behavioral issues have nothing to do with hormones and are just personality traits that won't go away with spaying/neutering. In fact most of my girl buns still had some of the same behavioral issues they had pre spay, after they got spayed.

The biggest risk/benefit for spaying your rabbit at her age would be for uterine cancer concerns, though there are also risks with having surgery done as well. Rabbits over 5 years of age and of certain breeds, can be more prone to developing uterine cancer. Not saying your rabbit will, but there's just a higher likelihood of it happening in older rabbits. I had a 7 yr. old female rabbit that I had spayed for this reason, as well as because of some concerning behavioral changes that occurred. Though if you do go ahead with having it done, just make sure to find a good rabbit vet to do it as there are higher risks with having surgery done on an older rabbit.
 

Latest posts

Back
Top