neutering - Male (“Tucker”) 15 w.o.

[Janiene Quigley]

Good morning!

our male bun, Tucker, who will be 15 w.o. On Monday, 3/25, has been causing havoc! He has been going after our Yorkie (male, “Ollie”, 10 yo. 13 lbs) and basically terrorizing him to the point that Ollie doesn’t even want to come in the room if Tucker is roaming around. We were told we had to wait until he was 20 weeks before neutering. In addition to terrorizing Ollie, he has been peeing everywhere (not spraying). He sleeps in an extra large crate and then stays in a 15-18sf playpen where he is free to roam in a room that is 540sf so boredom and exercise is not the issue. Our dog comes first but we don’t want to be unfair to Tucker either. A few questions:

Will these issues (humping and peeing) pass after he is neutered?
Is it typical to wait until they are 20 weeks (we can feel his testicles) to neuter?
If so, is there anything we can do in the meantime to keep everyone happy?

Thanks, everyone!

 

[zuppa]

Hi, I also have 4,5 months old lionhead/dwarf mix and he's doing all the same plus spraying since he was about 12 weeks, vet said then that they usually neuter when rabbit is 4,5-6 months at least otherwise it is too difficult for the vet but I understood it depends on your vet and their experience with rabbits. Also what breed and if testicles are already in place.

Mine is humping everything so I keep him in his cage and let out in playpen when he can't see other rabbits, but he can probably smell them. He gets aggressive and can even bite me if my hands or clothes smell of the other male rabbit and he marks his territory and my carpet too. I am trying to remove odour with vinegar so he couldn't smell him.
He's chewing and rattling his cage only stops when I put a large cork pinboard in front of it so he can't see outside, but I don't like keeping him like this so I attached a wooden abacus where he usually works on his bars and he has light but no access to bars when he wants to chew them abacus keeps him busy I also attached some toys to his walls and hanging from above so he has to fight them and it also draws his attention.

Hoping that he will be neutered in a few weeks time but I also know that he will keep doing all that about 6-8 weeks after neutering, so it won't stop immediately.

Hope the other more experienced people will give you some advise will be reading comments here as well



This photo is about two weeks old I had to change his cage as he was about destroying it completely, now there's much stronger door in his cage.

 

[Hermelin]

The humping and peeing will pass after being neutered.

Why they often wait to neuter rabbit is because of the anesthetic. Putting a rabbit through anesthetic is a risk, older and young rabbits will have trouble to handle the anesthetic.

I recently neutered one of my bucks, he have stopped marking the bed and no longer leave droppings behind when he play/binkys on the bed.

Keep your rabbit away from each other until your bun is neutered and calmed down with the hormones.

 

[Janiene Quigley]

Hi, I also have 4,5 months old lionhead/dwarf mix and he's doing all the same plus spraying since he was about 12 weeks, vet said then that they usually neuter when rabbit is 4,5-6 months at least otherwise it is too difficult for the vet but I understood it depends on your vet and their experience with rabbits. Also what breed and if testicles are already in place.

Mine is humping everything so I keep him in his cage and let out in playpen when he can't see other rabbits, but he can probably smell them. He gets aggressive and can even bite me if my hands or clothes smell of the other male rabbit and he marks his territory and my carpet too. I am trying to remove odour with vinegar so he couldn't smell him.
He's chewing and rattling his cage only stops when I put a large cork pinboard in front of it so he can't see outside, but I don't like keeping him like this so I attached a wooden abacus where he usually works on his bars and he has light but no access to bars when he wants to chew them abacus keeps him busy I also attached some toys to his walls and hanging from above so he has to fight them and it also draws his attention.

Hoping that he will be neutered in a few weeks time but I also know that he will keep doing all that about 6-8 weeks after neutering, so it won't stop immediately.

Hope the other more experienced people will give you some advise will be reading comments here as well

View attachment 40030

This photo is about two weeks old I had to change his cage as he was about destroying it completely, now there's much stronger door in his cage.

View attachment 40031

You certainly have your hands full! Just a few more weeks to go and then hopefully everything will settle down. Good luck to you!

 

[A & B]

I think I can help you as I have experience with this. My male rabbit would hump my unfixed male toy poodle/chihuahua before his neuter. He got neutered around 8 months old. Males can be neutered as soon as their testicles descend. If I were to do it over again, I would have gotten him neutered sooner. Right after his neuter, he stopped humping him. Now, they are best friends! They share veggies and run around our living room together. Our dog really loves Bugs' ears! Until the neuter, I would recommend keeping them separate to prevent any issues. If you have any questions, don't hesitate to ask! I will post a picture of them together later

 

[JBun]

Once his testicles have both dropped, he can technically be neutered. So you would just need to find a rabbit vet willing(and experienced) to do it now instead of waiting.
https://rabbit.org/vet-listings/
http://www.bio.miami.edu/hare/opcare.html

In the meantime, some people will give their intact male buns a stuffed animal to keep them occupied. You just have to make sure it doesn't have eyes or other bits that could be chewed off and accidentally swallowed, and also I would only use one with soft stuffing and no bean/plastic bead type stuffing material. Also make sure it's not causing any issues with the bun such as being so obsessed with humping it that it causes injury or causes a decrease in eating/drinking.

 

[Janiene Quigley]

Once his testicles have both dropped, he can technically be neutered. So you would just need to find a rabbit vet willing(and experienced) to do it now instead of waiting.
https://rabbit.org/vet-listings/
http://www.bio.miami.edu/hare/opcare.html

In the meantime, some people will give their intact male buns a stuffed animal to keep them occupied. You just have to make sure it doesn't have eyes or other bits that could be chewed off and accidentally swallowed, and also I would only use one with soft stuffing and no bean/plastic bead type stuffing material. Also make sure it's not causing any issues with the bun such as being so obsessed with humping it that it causes injury or causes a decrease in eating/drinking.

Thanks, JBun. We’ve waited this long, and certainly don’t want to compromise the well being of Tucker, so we are going to wait until he is 20 w.o. As our vet suggested/prefers. We are always with Tucker while he is roaming and are able to scoop Ollie up when Tucker starts following him. He certainly has no loss of appetite so I think we’re good there. I’ve read about the stuffed animal and will keep that in our back pocket if it gets progressively worse. I was just more concerned that this negative behavior would stop and that there was “light at the end of the tunnel.” The peeing is a bit of a problem/nuisance and I don’t want to confine him to the playpen as we all enjoy when he runs all around and binkys. But he also has to (learn) to respect the space we have given him.

 

[Janiene Quigley]

That

I think I can help you as I have experience with this. My male rabbit would hump my unfixed male toy poodle/chihuahua before his neuter. He got neutered around 8 months old. Males can be neutered as soon as their testicles descend. If I were to do it over again, I would have gotten him neutered sooner. Right after his neuter, he stopped humping him. Now, they are best friends! They share veggies and run around our living room together. Our dog really loves Bugs' ears! Until the neuter, I would recommend keeping them separate to prevent any issues. If you have any questions, don't hesitate to ask! I will post a picture of them together later

That is certainly good to hear! Ollie (our Yorkie) is a sweetheart and instinctively knows that sticker is a part of our family and just “tolerates” it which breaks my heart. I also know Tucker is not trying to be mean/hurt Ollie. We’ll just have to be patient as you said...just a few more weeks. Thanks!

 

[A & B]

Here's that picture! It's a little blurry, sorry. You can see that my bun lowered his head, asking to be groomed. The dog responded by grooming! They are never left unsupervised, but there's never been any aggression issues. It's good for keeping them both from becoming lonely.

 

[Nancy McClelland]

Our vet told us with a male, when they show, they can go. We've had some that were very hormonal and others had great behavior. The spraying was the thing that was most annoying but not everyone did it.