Keeping two fertile young female rabbits together

Question
We have two young norwegian minature female rabbits who are not from the same family and are not de-sexed. They live in a hutch together quite happily and they're probably about 3 months old. Recently, my
Uncle told me that you need to de-sex one of them other wise one rabbit will kill the other!!! is this true?

Answer
Hi Jessica,

if you plan to keep them together in the same space, both rabbits need to be fixed.  The reason is that when they hit sexual maturity in a month or shortly after that, the hormones will increase aggression and dominance issues between the two rabbits and they will begin to fight and could very well injure the other rabbit.

You should not just spay one rabbit and leave the other intact.  The intact rabbit will continue to attack the rabbit you had spayed.  Both need to be fixed.

If you are not planning to breed (and I hope you are not) it makes even more sense to get them spayed, as they also become more aggressive towards people.  By spaying them, the negative hormonal behavior is greatly reduced or eliminated, and you get back the little bun you fell in love with before they hit sexual maturity.

So my advice to you is to separate them into two different cages now (because you don't know exactly when each will begin to show signs they are now sexually mature).  You can keep the cages in the same room (but not touching or within biting or pawing distance, at least a foot away from each other).  It would be good to get both spayed at the same time, so that they can recover during the same time, in separate cages of course.

It will take about a month or so to get the hormones already present in their bodies used up, so do not try to put them together for 4-5 weeks after they are spayed.  You should begin to notice positive changes in their behavior towards you during this time (less aggression).  If not you will need to wait longer before attempting to re-bond these two.

I suggest going to the House Rabbit Society web site to look for a good rabbit vet (not all vets are good rabbit vets, and spaying is major surgery for female rabbits) here:

www.rabbit.org\vets

and you can look one up in your area.

Also, go to the main page of the site (www.rabbit.org) and at the bottom of the page at their search type in "bonding" and a large list of articles on bonding rabbits will come up.  You will have to go through the bonding process when both are mellow and appear to be ready for re-introducing.  You cannot just throw two rabbits back together after being in separate spaces for this amount of time.  You have to take it slow.

Write back anytime.  Lee