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SPAY your rabbits

Starlight

Warren Veteran
If this post manages to persuade at least one owner to Spay their female, who otherwise wouldn't have, at least Emmy Lou/Sweetpea's life would not have been in vain.

She came into me in a sterotypical small 4ft hutch with her guinea pig friend. I was told she was 3 years. I seperated her from piggy and sent her in for her spay, and they said due to the state of her teeth, she was more likely to be around 7 years. She had the start of a tumour on her ovary, that they could not be sure if it had spread.

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I decided to find her a long term foster home thinking no one would willingly take her on knowing she may be on borrowed time.

That's when Liz kindly took her on, and showed her what real love was.
And how it feels to be cared for, unconditionally.

Unfortunately, the tumours had spread, she was in a lot of pain, and today she was PTS, post mortem showing she had tumours on her lungs, one in her stomach and her abdomen was full of fluid.

Please, spay your rabbits.
She would be here if her previous owners had only done so.

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Sad and you are absolutely right ! Years ago, I lost a rescue-female aged 3 who started discretly to discharge leucorrhea hardly visible, so the vet tried to save her by taking off everything but she died of a shock as her body was contaminated by pus.. horrible death that occurs in 90 % of female rabbits mostly after the age of 5 but sometimes even before... When taking off the ovairs, often, the uterus is in bad shape and needs to be operated as well... I notice this is common practice in the US/Canada and UK but in France it is still not so obvious unfortunately, people hesitate or just don't want
 
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Oh hun im so sorry you lost her. I too lost my female bun floppy to uterine cancer last march, by the time we knew there was a problem and the vet spayed her it was too late, she couldn't breathe, we think it went to her lungs. I have since told anyone who will listen to have their females spayed, so hopefully floppy didn't die for nothing.
I blame myself and i'll never forgive myself for not getting her done when she was younger. Atleast it made me get my other bun done at the time who was also found to have uterine cancer but we got to her in time and she lived another year before we lost her to a stroke.
As soon as my current female sophie reaches 20 weeks we will book her in for the op.
I think a national campaign is needed, maybe in vetinary practises to spread the word.
I'm so sorry I let you down Floppy xx
 
How bloody sad. If only.

My Sally had an uncontained tumor too and I think that it may well have spread. Same reason.

I'd like to ask if I can use the photo of the tumor to shock people who I talk to about spaying? Would that be okay - it'd go on one of my homemade leaflets.

Thanks Kris.
 
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How bloody sad. If only.

My Sally an uncontained tumor too and I think that it may well have spread. Same reason.

I'd like to ask if I can use the photo of the tumor to shock people who I talk to about spaying? Would that be okay - it'd go on one of my homemade leaflets.

Thanks Kris.

I still have the actual thing if you want it!
They gave it to me as a souveneir.

Of course you can use the photo, if it makes even one person spay their rabbit who was before set against it, then at least that bun has a chance.
 
I still have the actual thing if you want it!
They gave it to me as a souveneir.

Of course you can use the photo, if it makes even one person spay their rabbit who was before set against it, then at least that bun has a chance.

Thanks Kris.

I have always stressed about the risks, especially because of Sally. Now I can show people how awful it is and that I'm not just scaremongering.

Helen
 
I didn't have my 1st doe spayed until just before she was 5yrs old as the "bumph"said 85% of unspayed does get uterine ca by the age of 5 so I thought it was safe to leave her until that age before spaying her.Our vet laughed when I said i wanted her done so moved to our present vets[was 14years ago].When Holly was spayed the vets rang and said she had an overy the size of a golf ball.She recovered fine & lived another 9mths but I often wondered if it had spread.I learnt my lesson,and along with my new vets,we since had my does there after spayed at 5months.Its really not worth the risk.
 
How sad :cry:

It's important, but many owners are simply unaware. Either through lack of information by the pet shop/breeder or lack of information from the vets who you entrust with the overall health of your buns. Sadly too many people, myself included, only learn about the dangers the hard way.

My first bun died aged 6.5 from uterine cancer that had spread. I saw 4 or 5 vets over the course of her lifetime at my (then)local surgery and never once did any of them mention neutering to me. I was vaguely aware it was done, but I wasn't aware of the consequences of NOT neutering females. The worst thing was the vets told me when they handed me her body (in a plastic bag, how unsympathetic :evil: ) they spoke to me in a very matter-of-factly way that it would have never happened if we got her speyed. But we had been going to that vets for 6 years and none of them once brought up speying :censored: My mum still lives in that area and even 6 years on, she still scowls when she walks past it because of it.

If the message can be got to rabbit owners (especially new owners) about the dangers of not speying then I am sure that many more people would do it :( These days it's written in a fair number of rabbit books, but how many owners go out and buy those books is a different question :?
 
I'm glad I read this post today because my bunny is going to be spayed on Wednesday and I've been worried about whether it's the right thing to do - now I know it is!
 
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