Bonding two young does

[bunbunbinkie]

So If you haven't read the post I did earlier today, Merlin is not a boy....but a girl. :headsmackAnyways, I now have two DOES, Merlie* and Marina. Both are unspayed (they are still too young yet) and have not "met" outside of their cages. I have some questions and concerns about potentially bonding them together.

Merlie is 5 months and Marina is 4 months. I am waiting till around 8 months to spay them. Do I/should I wait untill after they are spayed to try and start the bonding process or do I do it sooner than that? I understand their personalities change alot after they are spayed and that may set me back to square 1 with the bonding.

So I guess my question is this: do I start now or wait untill they are both spayed and recovered fully? Also, is it a good idea to spay them together, like on the same day? And how likely is it that they will even be able to bond given that they are both female?

-dumb bunny mommy aka Kayleigh:embarrassed:

 

[missyscove]

You should be able to bond them.
I would start now, (as long as you're certain they're both girls), maybe work up to shared out time and not shared cages. Or you can go ahead and bond them, have them spayed together, recover together, etc. I've seen many buns at our animal shelter that we put together, spayed together, and stayed together after that.
Of course, I think the shelter is the perfect bonding environment, because they rarely ever fight, I think they're too scared to.

 

[bunbunbinkie]

missyscove wrote:

You should be able to bond them.
I would start now, (as long as you're certain they're both girls), maybe work up to shared out time and not shared cages. Or you can go ahead and bond them, have them spayed together, recover together, etc. I've seen many buns at our animal shelter that we put together, spayed together, and stayed together after that.
Of course, I think the shelter is the perfect bonding environment, because they rarely ever fight, I think they're too scared to.

HA! Yeah I thought about that too. I am absolutely sure that Marina is a girl, she actually lets me look, were as Merlie never ever let me for more than 3 seconds.

Maybe them being both female will work to my advantage since I have alot of extra time on my hands right now because school is out. If it were a male/female bond then I would have to wait longer.

Thanks so much for your advice missyscove!!:thanks:

 

[Spring]

Unless you know 100% I would wait until they are both fixed . No room to guess or assume, since they are at the age where one could become pregnant :shock:. So I would either wait until both are spayed or have a vet make sure before I would do any bonding.

 

[bunbunbinkie]

I know my confedence in myself at sexing a rabbit just took a nose dive, but I'm pretty sure Marina is a female. I am also not sure that even a trip up to my work to see Dr. B would help either, since she also sexed Merlie incorrectly.

I have some time before I plan introducing them, so maybe I can have someone else look at her and confirm that she's a girl.

I DEFINATELY don't want any babies, no matter how adorable they are!!!

 

[ec]

Please - for their sake, and for yours - keep them separated until after they've both been altered. It will be much easier on everyone.

You also need to be aware that even after neuter surgery, the boys still have viable sperm for a month or two - so you would need to continue keeping any unspayed girls away for that amount of time.

Please don't take this wrong, but it seems to me that you're rushing into a lot of things. While I can understand your excitement, I can also see this creating problems, simply because your buns need time to settle in, get comfortable with their environment and with you. This takes time - it's not something any of us can rush.

I think you will feel better about things if you back off a bit (if not now, in the longer run for sure!), and you and your buns will get to know each other.

Hope this is helpful.

 

[Maureen Las]

I agree with Spring that you must have them examined by someone who absolutely knows how to sex young rabbit (doesn't have to be the previous vet. )

If you are absolutely sure that you have 2 girls there is nothing wrong with letting them have supervised time together now..however, please make sure that you have 2 girls.

it is very difficult to sex young rabbits.

 

[ec]

:yeahthat: - and that (difficulty of sexing young buns properly) is the reason that I was suggesting keeping them separate.

You need to be 1000% sure about this before letting them out together.