Best gender combination for a bonded trio?

When getting three bunnies together at 9 weeks of age, what is the gender combination most likely to work if (a) all three are spayed/neutered or (b) males are neutered and females left intact?

Two of them would be either siblings or half-siblings, not sure which (two litters are mixed together), and the other would be a different breed but the same age and from the same original home.

Also, at what age do the genders need to be separated and how young can the males be neutered? If they need to be separated before being neutered, how can this be done while maintaining the bond?

Thank you very much for any advice you can give.

The males and the females will need to be separated from 8 weeks till after the male is neutered. The males can be neutered at 12 weeks of age, or when the testicles drop. They must not be with the females until 6 weeks after their operation.

It is best if the females are spayed too because if they are not, 80-90% of intact females get uterine cancer. Spaying prevents this and can calm them down too.

I think the best trio combination is two females and a male, but I've never tried it so don't take my word for it. :lol:

Why not look at rescuing a trio? They would already be bonded, neutered/spayed and have vaccinates, so would cost you less, and it wouldn't be so stressful. Because remember, after their operations, they all have to be bonded back together, and sometimes this can not go to plan. Also, do you have the space to separate all three if need be?

Why we got babies from a breeder instead of adopting from a rescue

Sorry, this is long. (edited to make it more concise)

Actually, I should have probably given more detail, but at this point the first question is mostly theoretical since we already have two bucks and a doe. The reason for getting two bucks is that there is a low-cost neuter option in our area for bucks, but not a low-cost spay option for does (even the lowest price we found for a spay will end up being about 10 times what it will cost to neuter the bucks), so having two bucks makes it manageable for us to get all three fixed.

The babies are getting along fabulously so far, but I was just wondering "what ifs", I guess.

We do have enough space to house the rabbits separately if we need to, but we are really hoping they will work out as a bonded trio, or at least that we'll end up with a bonded pair and a single buck.

Right now they are all sharing a cage and have a large exercise area made of wire storage cube squares in a room that can be shut off from access by the dog. Soon we will need to put the two bucks in one cage and the doe in a adjoining cage, and either have them take turns using the exercise area or divide it in half. The bucks still have little tiny cup-shaped genitals and no discernable testicles, so I don't think we're in any danger of a pregnancy for a little while at least. They're only 9 weeks old.

We did look at shelters and rescues in the area. There just don't seem to be any bonded groups of 3 rabbits locally. We would have been willing to settle for a pair if we found one that was already good with kids and dogs, but that didn't seem readily available at this time either. They all seemed to be either good with kids or comfortable around dogs, but not both. And the ones that were good with kids AND comfortable with dogs were singletons, not bonded pairs, or were too small for us to be comfortable having them in the house with small children and a dog.

We decided that, given our situation and the fact that we couldn't find what we were looking for in the local rescue or shelters, the best option would be to get babies that could be acclimated to our household and to being handled at a young age. Hopefully they will be able to bond into a trio.

We can always just keep the three separate if we have to. If it turns out that the two bucks don't get along and we end up with a bonded pair, we will see where we stand at that point. If we feel we could handle another rabbit by then and the other buck seems really unhappy alone, we will probably try to get a spayed doe for him from a rescue or shelter, and either see if that helped the group dynamics or just keep two bonded pairs separately.

Oh, and when I posted the question I was thinking about trying to find someone who wanted a rabbit (a family we know is possibly interested in getting one), didn't care whether they had a doe or a neutered buck, and would be willing to wait a few months to get it in exchange for having it already litterbox trained and socialized to children and dogs.

The idea was that we could also bring home the flemish giant mix doe that looks like (and is sister to) the buck we have, and keep all 4 (2 boys and 2 girls) until they reached maturity and we could tell which ones got along well with each other. We could get the bucks neutered as soon as possible and wait a little longer to spay the does. Then when they were older we would know which three got along with each other and would make the best bonded trio, and give whichever one didn't fit in as well to our friends.

Then I realized that was a pretty silly idea, partly because it would require leaving the does unspayed a little longer (so our friends could pay for their own spay if they got a doe, since the cost of spaying two does was an issue) and then they might fight anyway. But it would at least tell us whether the two males would get along OK, and if they didn't then we would have two does that were more likely to get along once they were spayed than if they hadn't grown up together, perhaps.

Or I thought that if the concensus was that two does and a buck would almost certainly be able to function as a bonded trio, while two bucks and a doe were unlikely, then it wouldn't be too late to see if our friends wanted to take one of the bucks, and bring home the other doe now while they are still just 9 weeks old. Then we would have two does and a buck, but the cost to spay and neuter them all would be very much higher.

But I think we'll probably just stick with what we've got, and take the chance of ending up with at least one rabbit that has to be kept separately once they mature.

Ok, I'd separate the bucks from the does now, just in case, as they can mate in a split second.