Spay/Neuter Your Bunny!!

One of the most important things you can do for your rabbit's health and well-being is to spay or neuter.

©
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...

Articles

Spay/Neuter

The Bunny Bunch's article on spaying and neutering

Altering Your Rabbit's Future

The House Rabbit Society's article on the importance of spaying or neutering your rabbit

FAQ: Spaying and Neutering

The House Rabbit Society's FAQ on spaying/neutering

Spay or Neuter my Rabbit?!

Dana Krempels's article on spaying/neutering

Rabbit Spay/Neuter Preparations

Morfz's page on preparing your bunny for spay/neuter

Why You Should Spay or Neuter Your Pet

The Humane Society's article on why you should spay/neuter your pet

Spaying & Neutering

PetEducation.com's article on why rabbits should be spayed/neutered

Spaying/Neutering a Rabbit

The BCSPCA's article on spaying/neutering rabbits

Spaying & Neutering

Dennabun's article on spaying/neutering rabbits

Health and Behavior Benefits of Having Your Bunny Fixed

Zooh Corner's article on spaying/neutering your rabbit

To Breed Or Not To Breed

The sad realities of rabbit overpopulation and what happens to unwanted kits

Spay/Neuter

An article covering the reasons why you should spay or neuter your bunny