First an foremost, spaying/neutering your bunny will help it to calm
down and it will be much easier to deal with. Unspayed females have better
than an 80% chance of developing reproductive cancer by age three.
Unneutered males will spray to mark their territory. If only more
people would spay/neuter their bunnies, there would be much fewer
bunnies dumped at shelters abnd rescues due to behavioral issues.
Spay/neuter can go along way towards
avoiding urinary tract infections, uterine cancer, uterine disease,
mammary gland disease, testicular cancer, and of course,
it will prevent unwanted pregnancies. It will also make your rabbit
mellower and easier to get along with. Behavioral problems as a
result of hormones gone wild during adolescence accounts for nearly
all the dumps/abandonments/etc of young rabbits (those who didn't die
in the first few weeks, of unintentional neglect). If people had been
prepared to take proper care of the bunny, and get it spayed/neutered
when the time was right, they would have discovered how wonderful
bunnies really are as house pets.
Like humans, rabbits go through an adolescence of wildly shifting
hormones, and just like humans, they act out. Males, and some
females, spray - this has nothing to do with
litterbox habits and it
is not something they can control - the hormones are causing it.
The best way to solve this problem is to have your rabbit altered
(spay for females, neuter for males) and then after about a motnh (for
the hormones to clear) the rabbit will calm down, be much easier to
deal with, and you will have a wonderful companion and member of the
family.
If you have more than one rabbit, regardless of their sexes, altering
them also will make them much less likely to behave aggressively
towards each other (which could result in serious injury or even death).
Female rabbits can become pregnant almost immediately after giving
birth, so even if your bunny has just had a litter, that doesn't mean
she can't get started on another one.
Some reasons for preventing your rabbit from breeding include:
- Rabbit overpopulation - there are far too many unwanted rabbits in
shelters and rescues already
- It is impossible to find good homes for all the offspring (4 to 14
kits) in a litter
- Untimely death - most rabbits die before their first birthday due
to ignorance and/or improper care
- The rabbits are sold or given away, and ultimately wind up in the
hands of people who will use them as dinner for themselves or their
snakes
- Unspayed females have a better than 80% chance of developing uterine and/or
ovarian cancer by the age of 3 years
Much more to come...
To rescue abandoned,
unwanted, and abused rabbits without prejudice to age, gender, breed,
type, or other issues; to provide foster care; to spay and neuter; to
provide medical and rehabilitative care; to find permanent quality
indoor homes for them;
To educate the public and assist humane societies, animal control
officers, and other rescues, in teaching proper rabbit care to the
public;
To reduce, primarily by public education, the number of rabbits
abandoned at shelters and / or turned loose when no longer wanted.
