Should I neuter my rabbit?

[Luna-bunny]

Hi! I have 3.5 y.o. unneutered male rabbit. My kids were always against neutering him and now my daughter said she doesn’t mind if it will help us to litter train him. I’m not sure if it’s still worth to do it. Most health benefits are for females and his behavior is ok. He does sprays and pees in the corners, and likes to chew furniture, but he is really friendly with us and usually can play without aggression with our guinea pig. I think his peak of sexual activity has passed and he is much calmer (and lazier) now. Are there any other benefits for him in it? Since litter training is a benefit for owners and it’s not fair to put him in surgery for our convenience only. 

[Bam]

There are very few direct health-benefits to a male bunny. If it’s a bunny with very high sex-drive, neutering him would relieve him from the stress of constantly trying to mate and that could give him a longer life – your bunny doesn’t really seem to have this problem, though.
A neutered male rabbit would for ovipous reasons not get cancer of the testicles, but the risk of that isn’t very high to begin with.

I don’t know how old my first bunny was when I had him neutered – he was an adult when I got him and I had him for a year before he developed a habit of peeing and pooping in the sofa + romantic obsession with my dog, and for those reasons, I decided to have him neutered. The neuter solved both problems. If however your rabbit has peeded and sprayed in your house for 3 years give or take, it may have become a habit and not primarily a sexually driven behavior, and in that case, having him neutered may not stop the pee-marking.

Furniture-chewing is unlikely to be affected by a neuter. This problem can perhaps be lessened by giving him lots of stuff he’s allowed to chew like apple-branches and cardboard-boxes. But some bunnies just like to chew, I have one of those.

I agree that litter-training is a benefit for the owner, but not all owners (or often, parents of owners) are willing to clean up after a bunny all the time, so the bunny may end up sitting in a cage all day long – and in those cases, I would argue that the bunny himself benefits from getting neutered, since it may give him a lot more freedom.

Don’t know if this was of any help at all =/

[Eepster]

It really just comes down to how important litter training and stopping the spraying is to you. Neutering is pretty low risk.

Getting him neutered will not change chewing on furniture. That’s not hormonal, it’s dental. Lagamorphs, like rodents, have constantly growing teeth that must be worn down.

Our male Porky isn’t neutered, and did fine with litter training at home. We only have had issues with territorial marking when we had to go to dad’s house during an emergency and Porky was on a yoga mat he felt the need to mark (he stopped when we switched it to a rug from Ikea.) I found the thing that help most with litter training him was meeting him halfway, and putting the litter box where he liked to pee the most.

[BarbaraC]

Another benefit to neutering is it makes bonding much easier. Since rabbits are social animals they are much happier and healthier when they have a bond mate. No matter how much we love our bunnies we are not the same as having another bunny to love.

[Luna-bunny]

Thank you for your answers! He used to be much more sexually- active, but not any more. We let him out of cage when we are home, but keep him inside when he is alone. I don’t like to clean all the time, but what can I do, keeping him in cage all the time is cruel. He is strange rabbit, he has 0 interest to all the toys, apple sticks etc that we give him and will only chew on doors and furniture. He has a friend guinea pig and he has some sexual interest towards her, but due to difference in size nothing ever happened and most of the time they play together like good friends.  

[Author]

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