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After your baby bunny is
a few weeks old, his/her behavior will change.
Your bunny will become a "teenager" at puberty between 3 to 6 months
of age and will be able to reproduce with a mate.
Many new pet rabbit owners who bought the bunny for a child at Easter, will think they have a defective rabbit - something
is wrong! Rabbits end up in shelters or are abandoned
outside at this point in their lives.
There is no mistake - just a maturing rabbit!
It isn't fun or cute to
have an unplanned litter of bunnies. Rabbits can live to be 10 years old.
Those new baby bunnies are now your responsibility. You need to find them good homes or
take care of them the rest of their lives. Taking them to a
shelter will just add to the problem of unwanted domestic
rabbits. Abandoning them to the outdoors is cruel since they can starve
and are prey for everything including dogs, cats, owls and even motorists who
run them over. Giving them to someone you don't know can mean they end up
in a lab for experiments, as snake food, or for greyhound live lure training
(yes, it's illegal, but it exists). If they do survive and become
feral, they can become a public nuisance. ( Always call a rabbit rescue
organization as the first choice if you must "give up" your baby
bunnies. See the
House Rabbit Society
for one in your area.)
Spaying or neutering a
rabbit is the best thing you can do for the rabbit, yourself and everyone else
and here’s why:
Medical
Reasons:
In
unspayed females uterine cancer is as high as 80% after age five.
Be sure the vet takes both the ovaries and uterus to avoid
reproductive cancer altogether.
Behavior:
Both males and
females will spray urine and not just on each other.
They will mark the carpet with it and any place else they can spray
including you. Also, both
males and females with mark territory with their feces. Males and
females can charge, grunt, bite, scratch and be very aggressive.
Having your rabbit altered with make it calmer and a lot less
aggressive.
You
can get a companion rabbit for your bunny.
Rabbits are social creatures and domesticated rabbits are
descendants of European rabbits that live in warrens with many
individuals. Rabbits bond
with each other and enjoy grooming, playing and social interaction.
Rabbits
seem to live longer with a companion rabbit and heal faster if they get sick.
If you work and don’t have a lot of time to spend with your
rabbit, getting a bonded altered pair is a wonderful thing to do for you
and both the rabbits. If your
rabbits are spayed and neutered, you won’t have to worry about fighting,
or any other aggressive behavior between your rabbits.
Plus, you can enjoy watching them together.
Litter
training
becomes much easier and
more dependable when rabbits are
altered.
Avoid
Unplanned Litters:
In as
early as 3 months you can end up with a litter if you have a pair of
rabbits with one female and one male.
Pregnancies can have medical complications and does or their babies
can easily die. To let a rabbit have a litter because you think it
is cute or you want the children to see the miracle of life, can end up as
a complete disaster. Sometimes the doe or babies don't survive.
Photo Credit: Bumble
and Rosemary enjoy a quiet moment outside their 3 story rabbit condo.
Bumble is a Holland Lop and Rosemary is a Harlequin rabbit. They are
Hopperhome's own rabbits.
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