Earliest age to spay?

[Almi]

Now, I'm curious.

I got my dwarf lionhead, Lio, on Valentine's day, and I got some papers with her that said that she was born on December 12th and that she was spayed. She displayed no scars and was not shaven on her belly. Not to mention she was only two months old when we got her.

Can she really be spayed? She actslike an unaltered female to me, and they would have had to spay her several weeks before I got her to allow her to recover and then ship her off to the pet store. I thought females had to be at least 3-4 months old to be spayed?

I'm just wondering, because I'm really afraid to even let her be near my male. They got out together with my other rabbit, Emmy (who is now pregnant..), but Lio was running around, so maybe she didn't let him touch her? Or maybe he was just more interested in Emmy...is there any way to tell if she's fixed without bringing her to the vet?



Here's a few pics of her when we first got her.

A bit more recent - her favorite roost: on my girlfriend's shoulder.

 

[sep1118]

If she really is fixed, and was performed at a 'real' vet, the vet would not perform the surgery usually. I believe a female can be fixed after 4 month but most vets will wait till 6 months just so that the buns is bigger.

 

[juliew19673]

Almi wrote:

\

Must add Lio to my bun nabbing list - that photo is TOO cute!!! I'd check w/a new Vet and have an ultrasound done to make sure she was spayed.. Sounds skeptical as their "bits" are so small so young in such a small breed - I would think they were saying they did this to get more $$ for her..

Please post what you find out as I'm very curious.. Adorable bun truly LIO is.. Love that face!

 

[BlueGiants]

What a beautiful face she has! Such a lovely girl! (And what nice color!)

If the papers you got with her are accurate (Regarding her birthday), I'd be questioning if she is spayed too. But Marshall Farms, a "puppy mill breeder" that sells to Pet Stores (especially Petco,PetSmart and other large chain stores) is known to spay and neuter as young as 5 weeks of age. So it is possible.

This is not an accepted or recommended practice and no one is really sure of the long term ramifications on the rabbits health. But they do it so they can sell the rabbits as cute little babies, charge more because they are already spayed, and say they are not contributing to over-population...

It's estimated that they lose approximately 30% of the babies during or after surgery.

Only a vet can tell for sure if they did what they said. As Juliew19673 said, a sonogram/ultrasound could show it...

The behavior you are seeing could just be her maturing. She is getting her own personality and learning to communicate with you.

 

[Almi]

sep1118 wrote:

If she really is fixed, and was performed at a 'real' vet, the vet would not perform the surgery usually. I believe a female can be fixed after 4 month but most vets will wait till 6 months just so that the buns is bigger.

I thought so.



juliew19673 wrote:

Must add Lio to my bun nabbing list - that photo is TOO cute!!! I'd check w/a new Vet and have an ultrasound done to make sure she was spayed.. Sounds skeptical as their "bits" are so small so young in such a small breed - I would think they were saying they did this to get more $$ for her..

Please post what you find out as I'm very curious.. Adorable bun truly LIO is.. Love that face!

Haha, thanks, I think she's adorable too; she was my Valentine's day present, since I've always wanted a little lionhead. X3

Well, to be honest it's not really worth the money to me to get an ultrasound done just to see if she's spayed or not. I run a rodent rescue, so you can imagine what I must spend in vet bills whenseveral of my 70+ animals fall ill. Sorry if that sounds cheap...we make a good amount of money, but we have to be smart with it to be able to care for so many!



BlueGiants wrote:

What a beautiful face she has! Such a lovely girl! (And what nice color!)

If the papers you got with her are accurate (Regarding her birthday), I'd be questioning if she is spayed too. But Marshall Farms, a "puppy mill breeder" that sells to Pet Stores (especially Petco,PetSmart and other large chain stores) is known to spay and neuter as young as 5 weeks of age. So it is possible.

This is not an accepted or recommended practice and no one is really sure of the long term ramifications on the rabbits health. But they do it so they can sell the rabbits as cute little babies, charge more because they are already spayed, and say they are not contributing to over-population...

It's estimated that they lose approximately 30% of the babies during or after surgery.

Only a vet can tell for sure if they did what they said. As Juliew19673 said, a sonogram/ultrasound could show it...

The behavior you are seeing could just be her maturing. She is getting her own personality and learning to communicate with you.

Thank you very much!

Marshall Farms, yes, that's the breeder she's from; I got her from Petco. I couldn't think of the name offhand. I was thinking that she was probably spayed at too young of an age. Normally I wouldn't support that, but I didn't really think about it until I got her home. D:

That is so sad...I think if I ever get any more bunnies after these guys I'm going to adopt. I actually met (and am now friends with) someone that runs a bunny rescue. She just recently put a flyer up in the pet store I work at, and I noticed she now has 15 bunnies instead of 17; that made me happy to see that they are finding homes! But yeah, I donated a large rabbit cage to her rescue, and while she was meeting all of my furries, she told me some horror stories about some of the rabbits she's rescued. (And she ended up adopting a hamster from us! XD)

Hm, well her behavior is mostly towards my other (unspayed) female rabbit...mounting and such. They did it mostly at first, I haven't seen them mount each other for a while, so they were probably just establishing dominance. I've only seen them mount each other maybe two times since they've been living together.

Well, I'm thinking she is spayed then...was just spayed at way too early of an age. Thanks for confirming that for me. =/

 

[polly]

She is beautiful Almi :biggrin2:As soon as I saw your post i thought of Marshall's Sometimes when they are spayed so young they still seem to go through a puberty But yeah its def. a dominance thing just be careful that they don't nip each other. Hopefully whan you get your other doe spayed as well it will settle down

 

[Almi]

Yeah, like I said, they seem to have bonded well, no nipping at all, just the few bouts of mounting.

Thanks a bunch!

 

[gentle giants]

Marshall's does a lot of awful things. They also breed dogs for sale to labs, beagles and I have heard mixed breeds as well. Unfortunatly, most people don't know about this, so I tend to take every chance I get to tell anyone who will listen. I no longer will shop at my local pet store because they sell Marshall's ferrets and pet supplies.

 

[BlueGiants]

From what I was told, Marshall Farms breeds 99.9% of the commerially sold ferrets in this country. An awful lot of the genetic problems seen inferrets are traced directly back to them and their breeding practices. And they spay them at 4 weeks of age too!

 

[tamsin]

Is that five weeks on rabbits or dogs? Either one is shocking. The earliest I know of rabbits being spayed is 12 weeks (minimum weight 1kg). It's meant to be slightly easier to spay girls at early ages as they have less of a fat deposit.

Where did you get her from? You could ask them to provide details of the vet that did the op. I think it's pretty unlikely that she's been done though.

 

[BlueGiants]

No Tamsin, it is possible. Marshall Farms uses Vet Techs to do the spaying/neutering. They do the rabbits at 4 1/2 - 5 weeks of age. (No licensed vet would do it so young!) They are shipped to the stores already done. You won't get any vet info from them.

Marshall Farms usually does mark their Ferrets with tattooed dots in their ear, one dot is neutered/spayed. The second dot is de-scented. I don't know if they mark their rabbits.

 

[tamsin]

Wow, I can't think of a more shocked way to phrase my response to that. I'm surprised any make it through the op :X

 

[JAK Rabbitry]

With any animal, a good vet will advise you to alter then when they reach sexual maturity. With small breeds of rabbits, this is around 4 months. Although with larger breeds, it can take longer. French lops are usually bred when they reach either 7 months of age, or 11 pounds, so I usually advise the people who buy them from me as pets to spay/neuter them when they are 7-8 months old.

I had a nice couple drive all the wya from Harrisburgh to get 2 Frenchies from me, and they said their last Frenchie died a few months after her spay, and the vet had advised them to, and had done the surgery, when the rabbit was only 4 months old. The rabbit had many UTI's and bladder problems afterwards, amoungst other issues. So they're waiting until their bunnies hit 7 months now before goign through with teh surgery.

I guess it's a possibility that your bunny could have been spayed but to not even have shorter fur around her abdomen...if she was spayed, assuming it took about a week for the fur to grow back, she was only 6-7 weeks when she was spayed. HArdly weaned at this point. I would kind of hope she isn't spayed, just so she doesn't have problems.

-JAK

 

[Almi]

gentle giants wrote:

Marshall's does a lot of awful things. They also breed dogs for sale to labs, beagles and I have heard mixed breeds as well. Unfortunatly, most people don't know about this, so I tend to take every chance I get to tell anyone who will listen. I no longer will shop at my local pet store because they sell Marshall's ferrets and pet supplies.

Scary. The pet store I work at is a small, family/locally owned pet store, and we get all of our dogs locally. We don't ever get dogs from breeders that have "too many" dogs. My boss won't even buy dogs off of people that make their dogs breed for every heat cycle.



tamsin wrote:

Is that five weeks on rabbits or dogs? Either one is shocking. The earliest I know of rabbits being spayed is 12 weeks (minimum weight 1kg). It's meant to be slightly easier to spay girls at early ages as they have less of a fat deposit.

Where did you get her from? You could ask them to provide details of the vet that did the op. I think it's pretty unlikely that she's been done though.

Almi wrote:

Marshall Farms, yes, that's the breeder she's from; I got her from Petco.

JAK Rabbitry wrote:

I guess it's a possibility that your bunny could have been spayed but to not even have shorter fur around her abdomen...if she was spayed, assuming it took about a week for the fur to grow back, she was only 6-7 weeks when she was spayed. HArdly weaned at this point. I would kind of hope she isn't spayed, just so she doesn't have problems.

-JAK

I know, it scares me too. She's been doing great though, amazingly. I was palpating her today and where I can normally feel Emmy's uterus, there was absolutely nothing. I never thought to do that before - I was just feeling her to see if she was pregnant. Which, she probably would be if she wasn't spayed. So I'm thinking that she most likely is.

 

[pinksalamander]

Almi! I wonder if you remember me, Nuttie!

You have a hamster rescue!

Lio is lovely. Sorry i'm no good at giving out any useful info...

 

[Almi]

Frankie! =D

Yes!

Thank you! :biggrin2: