Castrated but still mating?

Question
Hi Lee

3 weeks ago we got our year old crossbred rabbit Patch neutered. The vet said after 3-4 weeks it would be ok to put him with our girl rabbits again safely without any unwanted pregnancies. However when we tried putting him with the does he straight away tried to mate with them!

Is he still fertile? I assumed they would lose the urge to breed, or do they continue mating without being able to get a doe pregnant?

Many thanks.

Answer
Hi Danny,

three weeks may be a bit early to place him with other females.  Usually our vets here say 4-5 weeks.  It all depends on the rabbit, some seem to 'use up' the hormones already in their body a little slower than others.

Normally you should notice a change his behavior starting to change around the 2nd or 3rd week.  Sometimes it takes a bit longer.

As for mounting other rabbits, this act in itself will not go away completely, because they also do this to assert their dominance over another rabbit.  This is why you will see females mount other males and females, too.  So just because your neutered boy is doing this, it's not necessarily all about mating anymore (because he is neutered).  What you will notice is that he is not constantly (or very frequently) trying to mate with as many females as possible anymore.  He will now be able to exist with them without constantly being after them.

So I think he's still got a lot fo hormones left in him at 3 weeks, you may want to wait a couple more weeks before attempting to put him in with anyone else.  But keep in mind that whenever two or more rabbits are together, they must first settle the dominance question, and you may see this behavior initially, but it should subside to the point where you can see them just hanging out together and lounging and grooming each other, without your boy constantly trying to mount the female and getting her to the point she has enough and starts fighting back.

Neutering doesn't eliminate the desire to mate.  What it does do, is give the male rabbit control over his desire to mate.  It isn't an overwhelming urge he simply can't ignore.  He has the ability to stop himself or not want to.  It is what makes it possible for a good pair bond with a female rabbit to work (she needs to be spayed to really make it work and avoid 'false pregnancy' issues).

Short answer, it's just too early to put him back.  

And I will also mention that in rare cases, a rabbit has an adrenal gland that is overproducing hormones.  So much to the point that neutering or spaying really didn't have much of an effect on their behavior.  If you notice almost no change in his behavior after 2 months or so, I'd bring him back in for a blood test to check his hormonal levels - if they are higher than what they should be for a neutered rabbit, you may have that scenario occurring.  It hardly happens so I wouldn't worry about it.  You are still too close to the neuter procedure to even start thinking about this.

Lee