Anyone ever bonded an intact male and a spayed female?

[Preitler]

Hi,

I'm asking if someone has experience with intact buck + spayed doe living together.

Yes, I know, and don't need to be told that this isn't the most promising combination, I would be glad to hear from people who tried it, and with which actual results, positiv or negativ. It's just something I'm contemplating, so I'm looking for people with experience to make up my mind.
And no, neutering the buck is not an option.

I don't have much experience with neutered animals, only had a male castrated foster dog for a short time - it was funny, female dogs didn't recognise him as male at all, niether treated him as female, were somewhat confused and some even ignored him completly - to the point that I had 2 dogs on my lap, niether of them caring that there was another.
I think if the buck doesn't see her as female and focus of his desire it could work out. If not, the doe would just go back to live with one of her daughters.

Buck would be a 3yo laid-back dude, free range house bunny, doe a 6yo breeding doe that is quite an Alpha and wouldn't take becoming retired from breeding too well without beeing spayed, very hormonell, bossy girl. They would be free range in house and garden, the doe was my housebunny for 8 months when she was 1 (myxo quarentine), was quite destructive with her hormones raging.

So, if someone has first, or second hand experience, please speak up

 

[Aki]

I don't have any experience with intact buck / spayed doe, but I did try neutered buck / intact doe when I got my first rabbits years ago. It didn't go well - the buck was trying to mount the doe non stop (which surprised me because I thought that him being neutered would prevent that) and she was having none of it. So, mounting, chasing, scuffles... I ended up spaying the doe as it was always the plan anyway (like a lot of people I didn't want to separate before both of them were done and had to learn from my mistake ^^). I guess you'd have much the same problem with an intact buck and a spayed doe except if your buck has an exceptionally low libido, I suppose. You could always try considering you've got a plan B to keep them separated if it doesn't work out. The chances of that combination succeeding long term seem pretty low to me, but you never know. Your doe being a breeding doe, she might take the mounting better than mine did (mine wasn't interested in reproducing with this buck AT ALL even when she was intact).

 

[JBun]

The only experience I have is when I tried bonding in a non neutered buck with his family group with 3 females in it. He had almost died when he went into his neuter surgery, which they didn't proceed with because of this, so I didn't want to risk trying to get him neutered again, but I felt bad for him having to be on his own.

He was a pretty docile buck with no hormonal behaviors(humping, circling, spraying, etc) when on his own, so I thought it possibly could work. Once I tried bonding him in, those hormonal behaviors of humping started up, which is even normal with fixed rabbits to some extent, so I just monitored to see if he would calm down after the initial introduction. The problem was that even though he didn't try to hump them all the time and was pretty calm for an intact buck, he did it enough that it started to bug the other rabbits, so I had to give up on trying to bond him in. I decided I just had to risk the neuter surgery if I wanted him to be a part of his family group, which I ended up doing and he came through it fine. Then I was able to successfully bond him into the group.

So my attempt was unsuccessful. But like Aki said, if you had an extremely non hormonal docile male, and he didn't behave hormonally when with the other rabbit, then it could work. Though if you do attempt this, just know that it's a big risk and I would supervise and monitor their behavior closely. Meaning you are right there to intervene before a fight breaks out. If he leaves her alone and doesn't continue to try and hump her, then it could possibly work.

 

[mark]

I am a rabbit novice so this is just an off-the-cuff comment. I would think that this would be a supremely bad idea, from all things I have read re: bonding. He will have his hormones going strong and I doubt that he would respond to the fact that the doe is spayed, and all that you would expect from such a scenario would follow (much humping and annoying of the female). The only thing you wouldn't have is more rabbits. Just my two cents.