Spaying

Hi All

I've had 2 female rabbits for about 2 months now. They are now about 6 months old. All has been ok, they were bonded, etc. They cuddle up, play, etc. But at the weekend when they were out on the garden i noticed the "humping". At first Missy was humping Thumper and then Thumper would be humping Missy and they would chase each other. And i have seen patches of Thumpers white fur on the grass. This is the first time i have seen this happening and they are out on the garden almost every day. I left them on the garden and thought nothing of it as they would then just go back and happily trot around the garden doing their own thing. But the next morning, i went to the hutch to feed them and put them in their run, got Thumper out quite happily. But Missy just kept lunging at me to the point i had to put a long sleeve top on which would cover my hands. I managed to get her out to have her daily exercise on the garden. Now it seemed to be more Thumper humping Missy. I thought "right, i'll give it a day or 2 and see how they are". They are in a 2 storey hutch so they've got plenty of room and are not under each others feet all the time. Now, they are both back to normal with Missy allowing me to stroke her, etc as i was doing before. I have read about having females spayed for the health reasons which i was planning on doing next year. (The vet has said that with the rabbits being females i did not have to worry about them fighting and so on, so it was not urgent to get them spayed).
Can anyone offer any advice. . If the rabbits were male i would find them a lot easier as i have always had male pets and they would have been neutered by now. (And when i was given the rabbits i was originally told they were males which maybe stupidly i believed and did not check for myself!!!) Hence a name change from Max to Missy!!!! . Thank you all for listening.

Hi

Welcome to You, thumper and Missy to HH.

Getting they Spayed will help the situation.
Females can sometimes become aggressive and or/ temperamental as they reach maturity and are not spayed. It is also best for them health wise, as they are prone to some very nasty illnesses if not.

You might want to check with your vet that they are at the right age and think about getting them done asap.

There will be someone along shortly who will know more about this than me, who will be able to advise you further,

In the mean time please feel free to post away, and again welcome.

Katie

Hmmm I dunno about saying that female rabbits wouldn't fight! My girls quite a stroppy madame...and she's even been spayed but she was tonnes worse before that...and boy hasn't been neutered yet cause he's only just old enough, but he is such a sweet thing and has never been aggressive towards me or tried to attack my girl!
From what I've read/know...it is better to get them neutered as it takes away their hormones therefore they calm down a bit and are a little less territorial..not always the case though as my girl is terrible in regards to that haha...
But Luna lunges at me..and did so a lot more before she was speyed...she hates anyone going into her space uninvited....where as Thistle is fine..he's a chilled out dude .

Thank u all. Missy and Thumper are being great at the mo-apart from running me ragged trying to get them back in the hutch-they run around the garden binkying!!! So i'm going to give it a couple of weeks until i get paid again!! . The good thing with my vets is if i do notice them start to "misbehave" again, i can get them in pretty much straight away to be spayed. I'll try and upload some pics so i can show them off

The humping is a dominance thing, and is natural hormonal and bunny behaviour but speying them may calm this down, it doesn't always, but humping may still happen.

The biggest reason to spey is that female buns run an 80% chance of getting uterine cancer from about 4 yrs old upwards. Without it, one or both of them will most certainly have a shorter life that you probably hoped for. 6 months is about right, depends on the breed, but your vet will advise you

Hope that helps and welcome to HH

I'm afraid female rabbits do fight, just normally not as aggressively or early as male rabbits but they can inflict serious harm on each other. Not all, some will live in perfect harmony for years, but often they will fall out completely out of the blue one day...months or years down the line.

As the others have said spaying is usually considered from 6 months so now is the ideal time to start thinking about it. The only thing to bare in mind is that as outside rabbits they will need a night indoors to recover at this time of year, due to them being unable to regulate their body temperature post-op for about 24 hours (kick back from anesthesia).