Female lop smell??

Question
I have 2 lops that are in separate cages. They actually are in a baby gated area (3 feet by 4 feet) and have carpet under feet. The male lop has been fixed, but the female has not (they are never together) my husband does not want to fix the female (about 8 months old)she is a happy, good bunny but lately I have noticed a smell. I thought it was their litter, but we change it every second day and I don't think that is what it is. Could it be some sort of hormonal thing with the female??

Answer
Dear Jennifer,

When rabbits reach sexual maturity, their urine smells more musky, and their body odor increases.  If she's now 8 months old, this could just now be happening.

The odor could also be from stale urine in the carpet, if she's peeing over the litterbox edge (which females do more than males), or from cecal dysbiosis, if she has a messy bottom:

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

so be sure you rule out any medical reasons for a bad smell.

But beyond the smell, it's very important for a female rabbit to be spayed because she has a very high risk of uterine cancer.  I just now received this message from someone I helped last year:

*******
29th August 2007

Hello Dana

I emailed you early August 2006 to ask your views on the prognosis for a five year old doe rabbit following urgent spay to remove a *very* big uterine adenocarcinoma. She had no visible local metastases and none visible on chest X-ray. (I was looking after my friend's rabbits when friend went on holiday, noticed blood drops in the doe's urine and took her to 'my' rabbit vet pronto). You replied very promptly and very positively, and I was so grateful to have your email to give my friend along with optimistic prognosis from the vet.

Thought you might like to know that I saw Honey the rabbit again today (i.e. one year post-spay)at my friend's house - she's in really great shape, totally happy and looking georgeous. Such a good outcome, that's one lucky bunny - absolutely no way she'd be alive today without that surgery and pure luck that it hadn't metastasised before diagnosis.    

Feel free to post this wherever it might encourage owners and vets to spay, and thanks again.

Regards

Joan Walsh
Devon, England, UK
*******

You can also read:

www.rabbit.org/health/spay.html

and find a good rabbit vet here:

www.rabbit.org/vets

For your female bunny's health and longevity, I hope you will have her spayed.  

Take care,

Dana