If there aren’t any complications, there’s no reason you can’t take her home that day. Vets like to make sure they’re eating before letting them go, but like you said, she would be less stressed at home and thus more likely to start eating. As long as she is given pain meds at home she should start eating before long.

The way I see it, there are two reasons for what they told you.

Either, they’re not very experienced with rabbit care and that’s why they want to keep her, but since there wouldn’t be anyone around to supervise at night there still isn’t much point to that.

Or, they are trying to rack up a big bill, which is most likely in my opinion, considering they want you to drop her off a day early (why?) and pay for a second overnight stay.

Both are big red flags, if I was you I would try to find a different, rabbit savvy vet.

Hmm, I wouldn’t leave my bun unsupervised either after major surgery. It just doesn’t sit well with me either, even if it were medically safe. Is this an experienced exotic vet or a regular cat & dog vet? There’s a big difference there, because rabbits are seen as exotic pets and the vet will need extra training to operate on rabbits. We have a topic about finding an experienced rabbit vet here: https://binkybunny.com/forums/topic/how-to-find-a-vet-for-rabbits/

You’re welcome! I think you made a good decision by finding another vet. We had our bunny neutered, which is a less invasive procedure than a spay. We could pick him up 4 hours after bringing him in, and he recovered at home.

The page I mentioned has a couple of good tips about how to spot a bad vet. “Can my rabbit eat before surgery?” is a good trick question. One of the most important things about rabbit surgery is that rabbits shouldn’t be fasted before surgery. They can’t vomit, so the risk of choking is nonexistent, and they’ll need all the energy they can get to get back on track 🙂

So, I have a slightly different take on it… but I think if you found a confident exotics vet closer to you that is good.

It is unusual, but the thing with vets is that they will be able to give her pain meds, fluids, etc. and will be able to syringe feed her the appropriate amount (which is sometimes hard to do at home). Some people have a hard time syringe feeding their bunnies, so perhaps that’s why this vet has this protocol.

Traveling for an hour after a spay would be hard on a bunny, but if they keep her there overnight they would be able to make sure has plenty of time to recover and starts eating, or feed her if not. I do think the second overnight stay is pretty excessive though. Although overnight supervision would be ideal, they would be making sure she was stable before leaving her there for the evening. And then she would be getting care she needed first thing in the morning as well.

Also, typically if it’s not an ER 24/7 vet, the overnight charges are not expensive, they just have a “cage fee” for the day.

Ultimately you want to be confident in your vet, so if it doesn’t sit right with you, then it’s good to go with that gut. I just wanted to provide a counter point because I can see some benefits to what their plan was.

When my girl bunny was spayed, the vet reassured that I could pick her up the same day. After the surgery, the vet said she wasn’t eating or pooing/peeing despite support feed and gut motility meds, so he wanted to keep her overnight. Unfortunately, like your vet, there would be no supervision. He strongly recommended against bringing her home. Ultimately I signed the discharge form, and once I brought her home she immediately went to her (modified) litter box and took a long pee. And then started eating hay and drinking water like nothing happened. That being said, different buns will react differently, and I also had to do a lot of post-op care (syringe feeding pain meds + wound checking) so I was pretty stressed out too.