Need Some Advice About Bunnies 8-10 weeks old

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Raspberry82

Raspberry82

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Hi all,

As you all know, I only have had 1 bunny and I'm currently looking to adopt a second (also in the hopes of bonding them eventually when the time is right). I adopted Max when he was 7 months old (he is now 3 yrs old and very well trained), so I have little experience with bunnies only 8-10 weeks old outside of this forum.. I'm not sure when the turning point comes when they start to mellow out more and become reliably litter box savvy or less chew-everything-in-site-little-terrors :). For Max is was when he hit 1 1/2 years old, but I have no idea if this was relative to his lack of any training from his previous owner and long-put off neutering by them also or simply a coincidence or a common maturing age for buns with calming down and being more trainable?


I'm debating over a number of bunnies, some from rescues who are older, some around 1 years old, some younger. It will really depend on what I think of their personality when I meet them in person.

This particular bunny is a female lionhead that is 10 weeks old.

Any advice on getting a bunny this young? Will they be a complete and total handful of crazy hormones and energy and destruction? I already went through this with Max for 6 months when he was adopted at an older age and went hormone nutso after being fixed as well as young bunny traits, so I'm wondering what to expect from 8-10 weeks.


I do have plenty of time to commit to training a new bunny, spaying when it is safe, but remembering the nightmare of Max and his enjoyment of pooing/peeing anywhere, everywhere he wanted when escaping in the house before he was consistently litter box trained and his like of trying to chew everything in site every single second, I'm not sure if I want to deal with that for another 1 1/2 years until this little one mellows out.

I guess what I'm asking is, at what age do bunnies generally really begin to mellow out and starting to shed their crazy baby energy and what not? Is it when they are fixed?

If it will be a huge pain of baby craziness for 1 1/2 years, then I will definitely be sticking to the 1 year + age group ;) ;).

Do un-spayed females like to spray, too or just un-neutered males? Max seemed to overly enjoy this even after he was fixed, lol :p.

Thanks for any advice!

 
At that age (10 weeks) the hormones won't be that crazy, Dippy and Fluffball didn't try to hump each other until they were about 4 months.

Lionheads need a lot of grooming, Also if you check out the Bunny 101 and the other library threads you will find alot of other information :)
 
Becca wrote:
At that age (10 weeks) the hormones won't be that crazy, Dippy and Fluffball didn't try to hump each other until they were about 4 months.

Lionheads need a lot of grooming, Also if you check out the Bunny 101 and the other library threads you will find alot of other information :)
Click to expand...
Ya mine are at this age so they are doing the humping it's so annoying. It's all through the day.
 
I find that the personality is so different in each rabbit. I've had 10-12 week old brothers that one would litter pan trained right away and never looked back and the other was a lot like your Max.

They are all different. We try to catagorize and generalize based on breed, age, sex, sputering, etc., but they constantly surprise us.

Go with your gut feeling when you meet them. You can assess them based on how they interact with you. That is the most imortant factor. (Causewhether or not shebonds with Max, she will still be YOUR rabbit.) JMPO...
 
paul2641 wrote:
Becca wrote:
At that age (10 weeks) the hormones won't be that crazy, Dippy and Fluffball didn't try to hump each other until they were about 4 months.

Lionheads need a lot of grooming, Also if you check out the Bunny 101 and the other library threads you will find alot of other information :)
Click to expand...
Ya mine are at this age so they are doing the humping it's so annoying. It's all through the day.
Click to expand...
Are they a boy and a girl? If they are you should seperate them, and if their not I would personally keep an eye on them becuase humping can be a sign of domination and you don't want them to start fighting.

Sorry for hijacking thread :)
 
Do females do any sort of pre-spay "humping" so to speak when alone with their humans like males will do or is this only a male trait? I've only owned a male :).

I feel a bit nervous in some ways. I once adopted a bun from a rescue and it ended up being severely ill and they missed it until I had to take it to the vet and then eventually returned to the rescue. So that bad experience did make me wary of how carefully rescues check the health of their buns :/.

At the same time, I know how uninformed some bunny owners can be who end up with a litter or even have them from backyard breeding. So since she's at 10 weeks, i don't want to get a girl and find out whoops, she's accidentally pregnant from before I got her and the owner wasn't honest about the buns exposure to males.

Tough decisions!
 
"Humping" with either sex can be a dominance issue. I would expect that Max will "hump" any girl you bring home (even though he is neutered). It will be his way of saying "This is MY house"... "This is MY territory"... "I'm boss". And once they establish the "pecking order", it will go away.

10 week old doe is tough to call. Some lionheads are "ready" to breed at that age. And I understand your trepidation after your previous experiences. There are no guarentees. A 10-12 week old doe could probably be spayed right away to avoid any chance of pregnancy.


 
Thanks both of you! I really appreciate the advice BlueGiants. It just made me wonder how likely she could become pregnant at that age since her owner said they were basically sharing space together (this 10 week old lionhead doe and her 10 week old brother). I guess when I go see her, if he's mounting her, I won't take her home. :?;)

Is it really safe to neuter at 2 months? I know everyone seems to debate a bit about this issue.


 
Smaller breeds tend to be ready to breed earlier, and so can be spayed earlier. If she is 10 weeks now, by time you get her... and bring her home... and get her to a vet... and make an appointment.... she will be 12-13 weeks old (3 months). It's early, but within a safe window. (Larger breeds can have a longer lead time.)

But either way, I'd tell who ever has the doe now to seperate her from her brother immediately. Better be safe than sorry. (She will be ready to breed very soon, especially living with a buck and exposed to his hormones.)

I think the most important thing is for you to meet her and see how suitable she is for you.


 
Well the 10 week old lionhead baby is out.. makes me too nervous knowing she is letting them be together all the time :p. When I asked her nicely if he was mounting the girl at all right now.. she never emailed me back. So , moving on!

Since Max has been the only head honcho here his whole life, I've been trying to learn as much as I can from other people's experiences on the forum (that I can find) of what to expect with bringing a second rabbit into the home. When we had Jemma here temporarily for a month the two buns were mainly extremely territorial about their cage area, no accidents or peeing, only when their cage territory felt invanded upon. When allowed to play one at a time in the living room, couch area or kitchen it seemed ok- lots of sniffing the other's scent on the carpet and furniture, but no peeing or pooing on these things. Is this normal or did I just luck out? Should I expect Max to be extremely territorial about every area/piece of furniture in our home even outside his cage if he smells a new bunny on it and expect lots of pee clean up everywhere?

To the people on here who own multiple bunnies (bonded/not bonded), do you end up with poos all over your home from the bunnies separate play times outside their cage because they constantly feel the need to mark their territory?

Sorry if I'm rambeling I'm just trying to prepare as much as possible for what might happen once I bring a new little one home :). And not wanting to have permanent yellow carpet throughout, lol!

They will both have their own cage on separate side of our living room.. enough to see each other but far away enough to not feel too territorial ( I hope!).

We're planning on no bonding until the new baby is 6 months old and spayed.

Help? Lol :biggrin2:


 
Stu and Evie are bonded. Slatey isn't . They have separate run times, b/c I don't have time to monitor the boys for good behavior (Slatey took a chunk out of stu when STu first came here).
Slatey craps adjacent to the bonded pair's litterpan. Just b/c they are not his poops, I assume. Marking his territory vs. Stuart's.
I've got a bunny blanket spread over the couch for run time. If Stu is out before Slatey, and drops some poops on the blanket, Slatey will go re-mark the blanket.
No poops present=no marking.

The HRS and others recommend bringing a doe home to a buck. I made the error of not sexing Stuart before I brought him home to Slatey. It was supposed to be on a trial basis, but you can't bring back a bunny who has a big bite out of his shoulder, can you:biggrin2:.
Thus, I had two boys, which definitively wouldn't be bonded. Got a doe, hoped one of the boys would be interested in a buddy. Evie was more interested in Stuart, so there you have it.
 
From my experience and talking to other people lops see to be much melower tha other breeds. My little lionlop Lint is ust the most easygoing rabbit ever, she never chews a thing or hides in awkward corners of the room. Litter training was no problem
 
Ok, thank you very much! The little grey mini-lop we're looking at is 10wks old from a breeder who raises them in a was that I really approve of. She has young children involved in the rabbitry to learn and so breeds for temparament as well as show quality (no that I care about the latter). She tells me in the pecking order of her litter, she is not the top dog and definitely is one of the more submissive ones in that group.

*crosses fingers* She sounds like such a lovey dovey and I really hope we're her new parents :biggrin2:
 
Raspberry82 wrote:
To the people on here who own multiple bunnies (bonded/not bonded), do you end up with poos all over your home from the bunnies separate play times outside their cage because they constantly feel the need to mark their territory?
Click to expand...


Yes! I have three separate playtimes: one for my bonded girls and one each for my fosters, Virgil and Snowball. For some reason, my girls don't leave any territorial poops around even though they have to smell the fosters. Both of the fosters leave lots of nice bigs poops for me to pick up.
 
Becca wrote:
paul2641 wrote:
Becca wrote:
At that age (10 weeks) the hormones won't be that crazy, Dippy and Fluffball didn't try to hump each other until they were about 4 months.

Lionheads need a lot of grooming, Also if you check out the Bunny 101 and the other library threads you will find alot of other information :)
Click to expand...
Ya mine are at this age so they are doing the humping it's so annoying. It's all through the day.
Click to expand...
Are they a boy and a girl? If they are you should seperate them, and if their not I would personally keep an eye on them becuase humping can be a sign of domination and you don't want them to start fighting.

Sorry for hijacking thread :)
Click to expand...
There a boy and a girl. But the female always runs away from the male. And I heard that's a sign she's already pregnant is that true?
 
Raspberry82 wrote:
Ok, thank you very much! The little grey mini-lop we're looking at is 10wks old from a breeder who raises them in a was that I really approve of. She has young children involved in the rabbitry to learn and so breeds for temparament as well as show quality (no that I care about the latter). She tells me in the pecking order of her litter, she is not the top dog and definitely is one of the more submissive ones in that group.

*crosses fingers* She sounds like such a lovey dovey and I really hope we're her new parents :biggrin2:
Click to expand...
One more thing about lops. I just checked where Lint was in the living room. She had jumped onto the table whe had put all the cables on. I freaked and when I checked not a single cable was chewed
 
I can't comment on bonding rabbits, but we got our Nethie mix at 6 weeks (from a pet store, this was before I knew anything about rabbits) and it only took him about a week to decide where his pooping & peeing spot was. Now he uses the litterbox happily. He is very active but has a mellow temperament (although I am dreading the 'teenage stage').
 
Flynn came home when he was seven weeks, and in a week or so was completely litterbox trained.
He is now five months old and still has perfect litterbox habits. He hasn't started humping anything yet, but he does run circles around me, which is a mating behavior. I keep waiting to catch him humping something...
I'm hoping when he gets neutered (this week, hopefully) we can prevent all the bad behaviors :D
He would really rather run around than be petted.
 
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