Struggling to know what the best thing is for my buns...

Hello everyone, I'm looking for some helpful advice please. I have my two beautiful buns Pandora and Bumble; they are bonded sisters and neither are fixed at the moment. In afew weeks I am getting a little boy brother for them, as I would love to have some baby buns at some point! But I am going to be keeping them separate and worry that he will be lonely. Do I just get them all fixed so they can live happily together and have no babies in the future? Or do I get another (fixed) companion for him? Or will he be okay with just the smell of them nearby and have supervised social time with the girls? Any friendly advice here is welcome. Thanks x

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Hello and welcome to the forum :wave: I think you need to decide whether you definitely wish to breed from your rabbits or not

If this is not important to you, then definitely the best thing for all of the rabbits would be to get them neutered. There are a few reasons for this. It would mean that all three rabbits could live happily together once bonded without fear of unwanted pregnancies and none of the rabbits would be lonely. Unless female rabbits are spayed, they will be at risk of developing uterine cancer (up to 60% of unspayed Does over 3 years old). Keeping an entire male rabbit within sight and smell of unspayed female rabbits would be very frustrating for him and so would be very unfair on him. Supervised social time with the females is not really a viable option for this reason and also impregnation would take a few seconds and mistakes could easily happen.

Pandora and Bumble are really cute

I think bringing an unneutered male in is likely to cause the sisters to fight, which may mean they are difficult to rebond once they've been spayed. This forum generally doesn't recommend breeding, due to the huge number of rabbits in rescues. It's of no benefit to the rabbits either, things may also go wrong ie mum can kill the kits if she's in any stressed or they are ill etc. Spaying has much more benefits so I would look at getting your girls booked in for their spays they're beautiful by the way! If you're still getting the male he's likely to be quite frustrated by the smell of the girls, and very determined to get to them so he'll need to be quite somewhere really secure. I hand reared a litter of baby buns and it was not easy, one did die, so there's that to take into account also. Then the babies will need sexing and splitting up quite early so they don't interbreed etc.

It only takes a second for rabbits to mate so you could soon have 16 babies, if both girls had 8 babies each. It is estimated there are around 65,000 rabbits in Rescues at any one time and many more in uncaring homes. It is not easy to find suitable homes when you have babies to re-home. So, your 2 girls would possibly like the addition of a male to share their life with but all must be neutered for them to co-exist peacefully. Boys can be neutered from around 12 weeks old but can remain fertile up to 8 weeks post neuter. If I were you I would book the girls in now for their spay so they will be fully recovered by the time the male is done then you would only need to wait around 2 weeks before you could introduce them. Introductions must be in a neutral area as females are very territorial and would almost certainly attack a new rabbit if he is put in their space. How old are the girls?

Thankyou everyone for your helpful replies! I think I've definitely come to the conclusion that neutering is the kinder thing to do, above all I want them to be happy and healthy. I've literally just booked in my girls for their spay and its before their little brother gets here! Thanks everyone for your advice, much appreciated, I just want to be a good bun-mum [emoji3059] x x

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