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Can I have your opinions?

serendipity

Warren Scout
Please be gentle with me, I'm ever so upset by my situation.

So here's the story.

We bought 2 rabbits for our children. I kept rabbits as a child so was reasonably confident in their keep. Both are dwarf, Wiggles and Bouncer. Had them vet checked, vet stated they were both female. I questioned this as I thought Bouncer was male. Second vet stated both were female. Agreed I would bring them in to be spayed at 6 months.

At 6 months we moved house, the day before we discovered a nest with dead babies. Seperated the 2 rabbits but too late and we ended up with another litter with a surviving rabbit, Crackers.

Well we are renovating and my husband has had his work hours reduced so money is tight. We knew Wiggles needed spaying and Bouncer neutering. We kept Crackers with mum. Crackers was sexed as female by vet ( am changing vets now!).

The plan was to neuter/spay when we had a little more money.

Crackers is now 6 months, 2 weeks ago Wiggles gave birth to 3 babies, so clearly Crackers is male.

So now we have Wiggles and 3 babies in one hutch and large run - potentially pregnant again as I estimate her babies were 24 hours or so when we found them.

We have Crackers in another run and hutch, Bouncer in a third run and hutch.

So now I am overwhelmed. I have been quoted £70 for rabbit neutering, £80 for spaying. Money is tight, very tight.

BUT we adore these rabbits and really do NOT want to rehome - although can't possibly keep the babies.

I'd love to re-bond as well as they look lonely :(

So would you:

a) Keep as they are and aim to neuter one every 2 months and then try to rebond in pairs (maybe keep one baby?)

b) Look for new homes (really sad if we had to do that though)

c) Aim to keep only 2 and hope they bond and see if we can find a new home for one male adult (how would I choose which to keep:cry:) and hunt for new homes for the three babies AND a new potential litter...

I know people will be tutting at us being in this position and I would love to keep all of them, neuter them all and have them all live happy ever after but I am being realistic and know that we cannot afford to neuter/spay them all and also know they won't all live together happily.

Any tips for rehoming babies too? They're too young yet, 3 weeks, very very cute, well handled and totally adored by my children who, of course, want to keep them all.
 
I would go back to vet who incorrectly sexed them and ask him to neuter the males for free as his advice has led to the litters..

they will still need to be seperate for 6 weeks after neuter

Also if you discovered dead babies and doe was already pregnant then my guess is perhaps you are not checking bunnies/cleaning out as often as you should..so you need to up that a bit

but when it comes down to it..if money is short then how will you afford vaccines and any emergency vet bills?
maybe surrender to a decent rescue..but to be fair you would have to give them a donation towards their costs
 
It's my first instinct to say only rehome the 3 babies, and keep the rest. HOWEVER, if money is a big problem, what happens should they fall ill and need vet treatment? Are they insured? Whatever happens I think you'll need to have the adults all neutered before you rehome them, as it'd be really sad for it to happen all over again. I can't say strongly enough that when you rehome the kits (and the parents if you do) insist on a home check for each of them, and don't accept anything less than a 48 square foot free range space. Also question the prospective owners thoroughly to make sure they know what they're doing, and whatever you do DON'T rehome to anyone whosider them 'the children's pets'.

Good luck, I know it's a hard situation but I'm sure things will work out for the best. :)
 
Firstly, I hope no-one is tutting at you. You were sensible enough to ask your vets to sex them for you so it hardly your fault they got it wrong.

Do you have any other vets in your area? My vets only charge £40 for a neuter. The girls are still £60.

As you are clearly attached to the adults you could get them all done and try for a trio, however if you haven't bonded before this could be a bit daunting.

My only concern would be whether you would be able to afford unexpected vets bills if any of them became sick in the future? Have you thought about insurance?
 
but when it comes down to it..if money is short then how will you afford vaccines and any emergency vet bills?
maybe surrender to a decent rescue..but to be fair you would have to give them a donation towards their costs

I agree it would be best for the buns if you rehome those you can't realistically afford to keep but please give a decent donation to the rescue who takes them, they will have to pay for neutering/vacc/vet bills and most do not get any kind of discount from vets so pay the same as you would.

But do confront the vet who missexed
 
I would go back to vet who incorrectly sexed them and ask him to neuter the males for free as his advice has led to the litters..
I think that is a good suggestion! Or at least ask for a hefty discount (my vet automatically gives a 10% discount for treating 3+ pets at the same time).

If you do privately re-home them please insist on seeing where they will be going to, and make sure the new owners have a good basic knowledge of rabbits; they are very complex animals:) (you can always recommend them to join this forum!!!)
 
Thank you everyone.

In response to whoever said we weren't cleaning out enough, we discovered the babies late as we went away for a night.

There are very few vets in this area so I don't think a cheaper spay/neuter is an option sadly. We budgetted money for vaccines etc but not for this many, that's the problem!
 
I agree with Honeybunny. The vet who sexed the male incorrectly should do the neutering. If this is done then maybe you could rehome the babies once neutered. This would definitely help as people are rarely keen to pay for neutering even when presented with the evidence of it being beneficial.

Good luck with the babies. Many people here have been caught out the same way.
 
If I were you I would consider swapping to the PVC clinic in Coventry (ask for Rebecca) or possibly 608 vets in solihull (debbie). They are both capable of sexing bunnies properly and a pretty rabbit knowledgable, especially Rebecca who is our rescue vet :D and the neutering fees at PVC are certainly more reasonable at about £45 ish I think. Not too sure about 608, when I had sooty castrated about 3 years ago it was £35 but will have gone up since.

If you can get the vet who missexed the bunnies to cough up for neutering all well and good but I would be a little worried about a vet that got it wrong twice :?:D

I would say your first priority is to get any boys that you want to keep spayed and away from any girls until the next litter are weaned at 8 weeks + after she is spayed and has a few weeks recovery.

Personally as you say things are tight I would suggest that you rehome all the babies + possibly one of your boys. A local rescue might be able to help you to rehome them although many have long waiting lists (we certainly do at the moment) and you probably wouldn't be top priority. If you want to try and rehome yourself I would be careful about the home that they will be going to in terms of accododation & their opinions on neutering/diet/vaccinations etc.
 
Aww what an awful situattion, and not your fault its the vets, at the end of the day I'd be ringing up giving them all sorts of grief!

I have insured my rabbit as we're a bit tight money wise, and it's peace of mind for me, we use petplan
 
Thanks again. Good news, we have a pet vaccination clinic not too far away where we had out cat spayed actually. They will neuter and spay for between £35 and £42 which is great isn't it? So have booked both males in next week.

Thank you :)
 
I find it quite shocking that a vet is not able to sex a rabbit correctly! I myself at sexing rabbits (even if I do say so myself :oops:). I did a small amount of breeding years ago (stop tsking I can hear you) and so learnt it all then. I check my bun and previous buns bottom areas regularly and always have a quick check there to just in case of anything untoward! An all there male has quite visible testicles (in most cases, sorry don't want to sound obnoxious).

Did you not notice any humping at all or anything that may indicate opposite sex pairings?? Dont take this the wrong as you took the advice of you vet but this is exactly how breeding gets out of control and rabbits end up in rescue or worse!

I honestly think it is worth knowing how to sex rabbits correctly yourself and checking this more than once too. My sis in laws male rabbit is called Emily because they were told he was a she until I told them otherwise!!

Sorry im going on now!! :oops::oops::oops:
 
Thanks again. Good news, we have a pet vaccination clinic not too far away where we had out cat spayed actually. They will neuter and spay for between £35 and £42 which is great isn't it? So have booked both males in next week.

Thank you :)

That's brilliant news :D :wave:

Good luck!
 
Thanks again. Good news, we have a pet vaccination clinic not too far away where we had out cat spayed actually. They will neuter and spay for between £35 and £42 which is great isn't it? So have booked both males in next week.

Thank you :)

Thats bloomin brilliant!! £73 my vets want for a neuter! :evil:
 
Thanks again. Good news, we have a pet vaccination clinic not too far away where we had out cat spayed actually. They will neuter and spay for between £35 and £42 which is great isn't it? So have booked both males in next week.

Thank you :)

well thats good news isn't it :) Their vaccinations are very good value as well. i was having to take a bit of a stab in the dark on prices as we have agreed rescue prices but it just goes to show how much of a rip off some vets can be.
 
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