Brother and sister neutering

Hello

So I have a brother and sister mini rex who are about 4 months

How would you recommend dealing with neutering/rebonding?
Ie would you have them neutered at the same time? Or is 4 months too young for a doe? If so when should she be neutered?
And how long would they need to stay apart for post op and why? Presume if they're done at the same time, it will just be til she's healed?
Thank you

dumblepaws said:

Hello

So I have a brother and sister mini rex who are about 4 months

How would you recommend dealing with neutering/rebonding?
Ie would you have them neutered at the same time? Or is 4 months too young for a doe? If so when should she be neutered?
And how long would they need to stay apart for post op and why? Presume if they're done at the same time, it will just be til she's healed?
Thank you

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I take if the are apart now?

With the doe it depends on her size, but yes she could be done at 4 months though many vets like to wait until 6 months.

The buck can be done anytime now probably - my 4 1/2 month old buck Smokey is going in on Friday.

They're only just apart now. Is it safe to do her now or really a bit young?
If not should they be rebonded and then split again when she's done?
They seem to be missing each other a lot at the moment

I took on 4 siblings at 4 weeks old, they had been orphaned, 3 girls and 1 boy.

It was a few years ago, but from memory I think I separated Pepper from the girls when he was about 9 weeks old. I had him neutered at 12 weeks old and then waited a further 5 weeks after the op before integrating him back in with the girls.

The girls were spayed at just over 6 months old. We waited until 6 months as Nutmeg was a tiny baby and seemed to be slower in her development. I kept the girls together after the spay and Pepper in an adjoining pen for a couple of days while they recovered. I put them back together after a couple of days and supervised to make sure Pepper wasn't too boisterous with them. He was fine with them, he tends to look after his sisters, so I was happy that they would all be OK to stay together while the girls continued their recovery.

You could have your boy neutered , let him rest for a couple of days then put them back together. At 4 months old it is very unlikely she is going to get pregnant. Then in a month or so you can have your female spayed, let her rest for a few days then you should be able to put them back together. Doing it this way, the bond shouldn't be broken. This advice is for 2 rabbits who are fairly laid back but if your rabbits do a lot of chasing you would have to leave a longer interval between neutering and reintroducing. They shouldn't be allowed to jump post neuter, for a week or so.

The other way is to keep them apart until they are about 5.1/2 months, have them both neutered then wait for a few weeks before rebonding them. This would have to be done in neutral territory as they would have been separated for about 2 months.

I have done it both ways, my friend did it the first way and it has worked very well and her rabbits were older than yours.

Years ago we adopted pair of young siblings from the Mayhew. From memory we separated them at about 9/10 weeks, but still kept them next to each other, so that they were still within, sight, smell and nose touching of each other (as they really missed each other, and it was heartbreaking to watch ). Once she was six months we took them in to be speyed & neutered on the same day. On arriving home we then kept them separate again for a couple more days, then we started to reintroduce them by giving them short amounts of time together; this was because he would sometimes get a bit too boisterous for her and we were worried he would accidently hurt her. But gradually as she healed they had longer together, and once they'd both had they're post op checkup at the Vets we left them together for good.

Just to add if you are going to keep them side by side as I did, you will have to be extra vigilant and careful that they cannot get to each other in anyway. As bunnies can be very determined. I once caught my little girl trying to scale a huge height to try and be with her brother :shock: :roll:

tonibun said:

You could have your boy neutered , let him rest for a couple of days then put them back together. At 4 months old it is very unlikely she is going to get pregnant. Then in a month or so you can have your female spayed, let her rest for a few days then you should be able to put them back together. Doing it this way, the bond shouldn't be broken. This advice is for 2 rabbits who are fairly laid back but if your rabbits do a lot of chasing you would have to leave a longer interval between neutering and reintroducing. They shouldn't be allowed to jump post neuter, for a week or so.

The other way is to keep them apart until they are about 5.1/2 months, have them both neutered then wait for a few weeks before rebonding them. This would have to be done in neutral territory as they would have been separated for about 2 months.

I have done it both ways, my friend did it the first way and it has worked very well and her rabbits were older than yours.

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i dont want to be rude but i think that's very irresponsible advice. since males remain fertile for several weeks after castration it is very possible that the female may get pregnant - unlikely or not it is not a risk that should not be taken.

OP personally i would speak to your vet and see at what age they are willing to neuter the female, then keep them separated until 6 weeks after her spay. you can have her brother neutered in the meantime but i think its safest for avoiding pregnancy and also to increase the chances of rebonding being successful to keep them separated until both of them are neutered and have had a chance to let their hormones die down

Talk to your vet. Each vet has different times when they are prepared to neuter - some say 4 months, others 6 months, others have a minimum weight policy.

The boy can be done now. As you have already split them the bond will have been broken so I would personally do them both and then rebond about 6 weeks after or more if you feel they need more time to heal/hormones to settle. I would not put them back together before they are neutered, as although fairly unlikely, does can get pregnant at 16 weeks and sometimes even younger.

thanks for the advice so far

The male got neutered on Wednesday, and was really unphased by the operation. We kept him in a puppy pen in our unheated conservatory overnight, and let his sister in to run around for a bout in the evening - separate but able to see him. She'd been moping in her hutch all day, and spend most of her time indoors trying to find a way in to him - jumping on the pen, running round, sniffing it.

Every night since, we've let them have about 3 hours of supervised time together. He was a bit weird on the first night (Thursday) as we think he was trying to become dominant bunny. Every time he tried to hump her, she ran off, or converted it into grooming.

Fri/Sat/Sun, he's maybe tried to sniff her tail once or twice, but they've pretty much been eating together, grooming each other, flopping together, hopping around. I kinda of feel that if he tried anything, he wouldn't get very far, as she's the dominant one and bigger than him. Their bond is really strong, but it's really not sexy.

She feels too young to be neutered. He's much more resilient to stuff but i'd rather wait until she was bigger.

It sounds like she's pretty young to get pregnant, although it's obviously possible.

It also sounds like the 6-8 weeks thing is as much to deal with hormonal bunnies who aren't already bonded and increase the chances of a successful bond, as to make absolutely certain there's no risk of any pregnancy.

Here http://forums.rabbitrehome.org.uk/s...Fertile-After-Neuter&highlight=fertile+neuter
says that "a 1920s experiment showed that sperm remained viable for several weeks after neutering when the technique they were using involved tying off the tubes rather than removing the testicles. This means that the testosterone is still present, and could help to keep the sperm viable for longer.

In castration now, they totally remove the testicles so the testosterone level in the rabbit drops off a lot more quickly. So the only sperm remaining would be those in the tubes. Personally I am sceptical that this remaining sperm could live for longer than a fortnight at most, but obviously not wanting to create unnecessary babies we seem to err on the side of caution and recommend several weeks before putting a newly castrated male with an unspayed female."

http://forums.rabbitrehome.org.uk/s...ing-and-help-please!&highlight=fertile+neuter
Here that the hormones take 6-8 weeks to subside, but sperm only viable for about 2

And then quite a few
http://forums.rabbitrehome.org.uk/s...ow-long-after-neuter&highlight=fertile+neuter
http://forums.rabbitrehome.org.uk/s...ale-rabbit-get-pregnant/page2&highlight=sperm

say that "In humans it's 3-5 days, a week tops" that the live sperm will survive, and that in the past, vets recommended 2 weeks, then 3 weeks etc and that (in 2009) reduces were rebounding after 2-3 weeks...

So.. I don't know. I guess it kinda depends on the bunnies, and the level of risk one wishes to take - as apparently he could still make her pregnant 9 or more weeks in dependent on some posts. So even if we did keep them apart for 6 weeks there's still a chance she could end up pregnant. But they really don't seems very humpy or hormonal. So half of me if aligned with tonibun and thinking it would probably be ok 'cos they're just best friends and it's mean to keep them apart, and the other half is thinking it would be totally wrong to give my doe the risk of underage pregnancy 'cos she's such a sweet girl

I'm meeting my rabbit sitter tomorrow who has lots of bunnies and experience, and taking him for his post-op vet check next saturday, so will talk to the bunny sitter and the vet and see what they advise, and any more opinions/advice also encouraged.

Until then, I'll keep them separate except at supervised play time, and keep swapping hutches so they still smell of each other and neither gets the bigger hutch all the time and keep agonising anxiously over whether to keep them sad and separate, or take the risk and rebound them in a couple of weeks

this should be so much more straightforward than i'm making it!!!

thanks everyone for advice so far