What would my 2 boy buns do if..

I have had my female rabbit for over a year now, and recently my sister adopted 2 male rabbits and kept them outside. But now my sister has left me to look after them and has nothing to do with them, so I wanted to move the boys into my room because I have a very big fear of bugs and the weather is just too bad for them to stay out there, in my opinion. But my only problem is that my female lives in my bedroom too, and I know with guinea-pigs that if two males even smell a female then they will usually fight to the death, but I was wondering if it would be the same for rabbits too? I have tried researching it but have found nothing.
If they will fight then I will invest in some sort of shed or something, and if they will not fight then I will build them a cage out of C&C cage grids in my bedroom, but I won't even think about bonding them as my female has been alone all her life, even before I got her, so I think it would stress her out a lot.

Thanks

My 7 year old boy was alone for 5 years, no rabbit contact and very little human contact, he and Kerbie are inseparable now -



Depends, are they neutered? Is she spayed? They could have referred aggression because they can smell another rabbit and that may cause them to fight. It will be more prominent if there are hormones all over the place.

The males are not neutered but we are booking my female to be spayed later this week so I can look after her during my holiday. If the males will have to be neutered it will be in a month or so, because I have to earn the money myself, and the price for the males will be around £120.

That's an awful lot to get a male neutered.

They will all need neutering/spaying pre-bond for at least 6-8 weeks.

GrahamL said:

That's an awful lot to get a male neutered.

They will all need neutering/spaying pre-bond for at least 6-8 weeks.

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It would be that price for both males. It would be around £60 for one.

So if I neuter the males and spay my female, they should be able to live in my room without any problems after that amount of weeks?

TheKrazyKrillRabbits said:

It would be that price for both males. It would be around £60 for one.

So if I neuter the males and spay my female, they should be able to live in my room without any problems after that amount of weeks?

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depends... they'd still need bonding and everything and they may still pester the female. Sometimes introducing a new rabbit to a bonded pair can cause the current pair to fall out and you may end up with 3 single rabbits. Hopefully that wouldn't happen though! Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't, there will always be a risk

TheKrazyKrillRabbits said:

It would be that price for both males. It would be around £60 for one.

So if I neuter the males and spay my female, they should be able to live in my room without any problems after that amount of weeks?

Click to expand...

Theyd need bonding in neutral territory first, and your room, if any of them have been in there, will need to be neutralised, but yes, as long as the space is adequate for 3 rabbits.

If the males aren't neutered then there is certainly a possibility that they would start fighting if you brought them into the same space as a girl. I would say two males and not neutered were the biggest risk for fighting.

I would tend to do the neutering before moving anyone and then it's possible they may bond and all live together in your room. It doesn't completely guarantee no fights (not really any guarentees with animals) but if the boys did fall out it's likely you could bond one or other with your female then, and you'd still only gave two groups.

Thanks everyone for your great responses

I've decided that I will leave the boys outside until I have earned enough money to neuter them, which if I try hard enough could be the end of August or September. I'll then leave them a couple of weeks and when they are ready I will let them see the female through the C&C cage grids, if that triggers any fighting I will take them away and see if it continues, if it continues then I will separate them and introduce one to the female and if need-be i'll have to get another female for the other, if they don't fight then I will invest in a decent shed for them x
If they are all okay I MIGHT introduce the boys to the girl and they can all live free range of my room like my girl has now. If I don't, I will be putting them in a C&C cage ontop of the female's, and give them floortime in the kitchen or bathroom. x

Does that all sound okay?

X Thankyou everyone I really appreciate your help, and the bunnies will too!

TheKrazyKrillRabbits said:

It would be that price for both males. It would be around £60 for one.

So if I neuter the males and spay my female, they should be able to live in my room without any problems after that amount of weeks?

Click to expand...

Theyd need bonding in neutral territory first, and your room, if any of them have been in there, will need to be neutralised, but yes, as long as the space is adequate for 3 rabbits.

Just wanted to agree that getting the boys fixed is very important. From what I've read around here unfixed 2 boys will end up fighting girl rabbit or no girl rabbit, as they'll try to become dominant to each other.

The other thing I noticed which nobody has mentioned yet - you've said you need to scrape together the money to get them fixed £100 or so roughly. Don't forget you need to get them vaccined as well (not so expensive) but the main thing is rabbits can be expensive, especially if one/both get unwell, stop eating or some other problems apparently they can end up dying very quickly and usually need to get to a vet very quickly.

This could mean emergency vet visit out of hours, which certainly can add up to hundreds of pounds (I know this from experience!) so if you are really struggling please have a good think about this aspect of it. Hopefully your rabbits will remain healthy and in good shape and you won't need to ever go to a vet (except for routine yearly stuff like vaccination) but you need to be prepared in case you do have to go out of hours and have a decent sum of money stashed away for that...

Hi guys, sorry for not being able to reply In a while as I have been quite busy :roll:
@bluedragon Thankyou for bringing that up, as i'm sure one or two other people may have thought about that too. Don't worry, for emergency visits my parents pay and then I give them the money when I can but for things that can wait a couple weeks or so and are really expensive my parents like me to earn the money first off.

Also, I would just like to announce that we are building a shed for them, just as we think it maybe a little better space wise and may take away the stress it would cause.