Too old?

[MiserySmith]

hopefully this is the right section for this.

My rabbit Peppy is about 6 years old, he is a holland lop, indoor, no health issues in his life. If I got blood work done for him before hand, do you think it would be safe to put him through a neuter?
I've been changing my mind a lot because of his age. On one hand he could live only 2 more years and the surgery could be hard on him, but on the other hand I could have him for another 6 years and he could make it through the surgery beautifully. It's so hard to know what to decide.

How old is too old?

 

[Korr_and_Sophie]

Blood work doesn't always pick up everything, but it can help with some more common issues that might be a problem with the anaesthetic.
If he is otherwise healthy and you have a good rabbit vet, there should not be too many risks.

One thing with rabbits, is they can go down hill fast. You can have a healthy rabbit one day and they can be gone the next. It's really hard to know. You could get him neutered now, and in a month he could develop something totally unrelated and could have developed it anyway. Getting him neutered will help prevent testicular cancer and you won't have to worry about dealing with that in a few years when there would be more risks to surgery. At his age, behaviour issues are probably not why you are getting him done.

 

[majorv]

Considering his age, is there something about his current behavior that has you thinking about neutering him now?

 

[BunnyWabbit]

I would definitely get blood work done for any bunny 6+ getting neutered. If you have a rabbit savvy vet and generally healthy rabbit I would imagine the risks would only be slightly higher than it is for a younger rabbit.

 

[MiserySmith]

I've only owned him for 2 years, not all 6 of his life or I would have neutered him earlier.
I want to neuter now so hopefully he'd be more reliably litter trained and so he wont spray on my bed(that hes blocked from right now). I want to have him free roaming the apartment instead of locking him in his cage at night/keeping him in one room during the day. Basically I know that with his age it's probably now or never for a neuter. It's just a really hard decision.