Just found out he is a she

[robin]

Hi everyone,

So I took my buns to the vet for the first time today. I have two and I've had them for two months and was on the waiting list for the only vet that sees rabbits in the area. Anyway, I thought I had two girls, one spayed one not, and wanted to get the other spayed too. To my surprise, one is a boy.

The girl is getting spayed a week from today and the boy soon as well. The vet said she didn't feel any fetuses but you can never be sure. So for the next week I'm praying I don't wake up and see a bunch of baby buns.

I've seen them kind of humping before, but more playfully and never successfully.. they are the best of friends and totally bonded. I bought them at the pet store together (in the female pen) so they are very close.

Has anyone had experiences like this? Do you think once she is spayed, their bond will be affected?

Thank you all in advance! Kind of freaking out over here.

 

[Blue eyes]

It sounds like you are on the right track getting the girl spayed and the boy neutered. Spays and neuters are done very roughly at the time when rabbits become adults. (They are adults at 6 ish months). Their relationship could change then but it would be more because of them becoming adults rather than a direct result of the spay/neuter.

Baby bonds actually don't count as true bonds. Almost all babies get along...that is until hormones kick in and they grow up. So even the cuddliest of babies have the potential to become mortal enemies once they become adults. So don't think that the spay itself will break the bond. The bond break (if it does occur) would just be the natural course of events and would likely happen even if they weren't spayed or neutered.

Once they are both fixed, the true bonding process can begin. That is when you get to see how they do and whether they will bond. Just bear in mind that it can take up to 8 weeks after a male's neuter surgery before his hormones fully dissipate. It isn't advised to attempt to bond them until 6-8 weeks after that surgery.

 

[Aki]

Yeah the 'I got two girls and one of them happened to be a boy' happened to me too when I got my first rabbits years ago. It's a classic, as rabbits are hard to ***. It's even more frequent in petshops as people working there don't know the first thing about animals (but mine came from a people who had an accidental litter and claimed to be able to *** them). In the end, if your doe is not pregnant, you got lucky - a male / female pairing works a lot better than a female / female one and that will save you a lot of grief when you've got to bond them as adults. Still, let this be a lesson I've learnt in my time : NEVER put rabbits together before they are both spayed / neutered no matter what you think the sexes might be or what you were told. They could sudden begin to fight for no reason once the hormones kick in and do a lot of damage before you can intervene or you could end up with more rabbits that you bargained for if they were sexed wrong (which is very frequent). I hope for you there is no babies! Contrarily to what a lot of people think, does are not always easy - my doe at the time wasn't interested at all in having kits and though the vet was like 'she spent a 6 weeks with a male, she's pregnant for sure' she wasn't and could be spayed with no problems.

 

[Whiterabbitrage]

Happened to me too! That's why my beautiful princess bun is named Harvey. She was supposed to be a boy.

 

[Nancy McClelland]

My Nick became Nikki after I checked--the shelter people don't always get it right.

 

[ladysown]

part of the problem in sexing buns is that bunnies, just like with people, mature at different rates. I've had six week old kits be terrorizing their male litter mates (and be ready to breed at three months of age) and others ... that just aren't showing anything truly definitive by the time they are 8-12 weeks old and not be ready to breed until a full year old.

I've learned to look for little red lines to show the difference as opposed to the taco or burrito that most look for... especially with the slow to mature kits. I've had "does" mysteriously turn into bucks and more rarely "bucks" into does.