So bad after spay!

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Athenaandspyro

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My little girl Athena got spayed over 2 weeks ago approach 3 weeks. She's been terrible with her behavior. She had an uneventful spay she healed amazingly but her behavior is out of hand. Before being spayed she was sweet and generally calm no agression. After spay she'd digging at everything chewing things shes never chewed before aka my wifi thats hidden she tries all night to find a way to get to it. She's ruined 3 of her blankets one of her litterboxes and her cute little pink hay hut that I like to put her hay in for her. Her appetite also seems to be alot bigger than before. I dont know if this is normal or not after a spay but she definitely isn't her normal self at all.
 
What can sometimes happen with some rabbits post spay/neuter, is they seem to get a surge of hormones from the pituitary, causing uncharacteristic restless and 'hormonal' behavior. This can last for several weeks until the body balances itself out and adjusts to the reproductive organs being gone, and the residual hormones fading. So it's just a matter of sticking it out for a few more weeks and giving your rabbits body functions time to level out.

Things that you can do in the meantime to distract your rabbit are, extra rabbit proofing to prevent the destructive behavior. You can also train your rabbit with food rewards, as another tool to focus and distract your rabbit from destructive behavior. Also redirecting that behavior to things she's allowed to destroy like making her a dig box(cardboard box with crumpled paper), cheap fleece blankets that she can dig and chew up, rabbit safe branches for chewing and eating, timothy hay blocks for chewing, toilet paper tube toys stuffed with hay, cardboard boxes made into hidey holes and tunnels that she can chew and rip up.

Though with some rabbits, some of these things may not be safe to use. If you have a rabbit that ingests cardboard in large pieces or a significant amount, or ingests carpet or blanket fibers, these can present a health risk of a gut blockage occurring. So for these rabbits only natural grass and rabbit safe wood products should be used.

https://bunnyproof.com/
https://rabbitsindoors.weebly.com/bunny-proofing.html
https://rabbitsindoors.weebly.com/boredom-busters.html
https://wabbitwiki.com/wiki/Toys_and_games
Medirabbit: rabbit safe branches

https://wabbitwiki.com/wiki/Training_a_rabbit
Another thing that can help is making some possible changes to her diet. If she has too many high calorie foods in her diet and/or is fed very much concentrated food(pellets), drastically reducing these things so she will eat more of her free fed grass hay, will take up more of her time eating the hay so she will have less time to be destructive. Though for this you do have to ensure she is eating the hay really well so she is getting enough nutrients to maintain a healthy weight, and that the hay isn't too coarse and no more than a medium coarse hay. It's also a good idea to monitor a rabbits weight when any dietary changes are made. When feeding a mostly grass hay and very restricted or no pellet diet, a salt lick needs to be offered for the necessary dietary sodium, and also a balanced diet of greens and veggies to provide extra nutrients needed in the diet.

https://rabbitsindoors.weebly.com/greens--veggies.html
If given several weeks and the behavior continues, then there could be something more going on, like something missed in the surgery, still left in there and producing hormones. Adrenal problems can also be a cause for hormonal type behavior in spayed/neutered rabbits.

https://rabbit.org/sex-hormones-in-altered-rabbits/
 

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