Floppys Manhood

Question
My fiance and I have a 2.5 year old rabbit, Floppy. He's beige/gray,
floppy eared, Holland Lop. During a routine nail cutting and petting, I
found that something is wrong with his "manhood" area. He is not
neutered (b/c my fiance doesn't want him to be Buck from Married With
Children). Nonetheless, his testicles seem to be ok, not enlarged or anything,
but the sacks are really long and feel like they have fluid and little
lumps in them. Toward his penis, the sacks have more skin and also
have round areas which seem as though at one point fluid leaked out but
then healed up and developed these crusty round looking areas. For his
color in general, that area seems too brown and, for how clean he is, it
seems almost like a cut that was infected and is healing Floppy doesn't
seem to be more or less responsive when I touched them. I did some
research and think it maybe testicular cancer. What can you suggest? Can
rabbits be neutered at his age? Does rabbit cancer spread all over?
Also, lately he has been grooming himself down there a lot and has "wing"
like hairloss on his shoulder blades. We put him on vitamins into his
water and his hair looks like is growing back. He eats well and loves his
veggies. He seems to be normally active and quite affectionate. We
have another rabbit, Psycho, as we once  thought was a female, quickly was
discovered to be a male. But Psycho doesn't have this on his testicle
and neither did any of my other rabbits that I've had. we are both
quite concerned. Can his hair loss be connected to the testicle issue? It's
2 am and we're both frantically searching the Internet in hopes of an
answer or some hope as to what's wrong with Floppy!!! Please help.

Answer
Dear Viktoriya,

I hope you can prevail on your fiance to not anthropomorphize Floppy.  If his testicles are lumpy and leaking fluid, then they could either be infected or have cancer, and either case would indicate that a neuter will help him in many ways.  

It's also possible that he has mange, which would cause crustiness around his genitals, nose, ears, eyes, toes, and other areas.  Please see:

www.bio.miami.edu/hare/furloss.html

Another possibility is rabbit syphilis, which he might have been carrying all his life, but is showing signs now because he is somehow immunocompromised.  An intact animal is not as generally healthy and robust as a neutered one because, frankly, a LOT of energy is spent on hormones and sex drive, and this causes a lot of stress for the rest of the system.  Neutered animals tend to live longer, and have fewer health problems than intact ones.

In any case, I'd get Floppy to a good rabbit vet for a complete checkup and advice about whether his testicles need to be removed.  The plus side of having him neutered is that you can then set up a "blind date" with your local rabbit rescuer to let him pick a spayed mate.  Why deny Floppy that joy that is so central to every rabbits' wellbeing?  :)

You can find a good vet here:

www.rabbit.org/vets

and a local rescuer here:

www.rabbit.org/chapters

Hope that helps.

Dana