convincing the parents to allow you to spay your rabbit?

[Minimoomin]

My mum is refusing to allow me to get my bunny spayed, because she says it’s risky. How can I convince her otherwise??

[Deleted User]

How old is your bunny? If she’s elderly (7+) it’s up to both you and your veterinarian to decide what’s safest for her. If she is younger it is very, very important for her to get spayed. Rabbits are designed to be basically breeding machines, so when they don’t breed it can lead to reproductive complications, mainly in the form of cancer. I don’t want to scare you, but any unspayed rabbit over the age of 2 or 3 has a high chance of developing uterine cancer at some time in its life. Trust me, I was told my bun was a boy, and there was no need for neutering. Now I’ve been told by another vet that she’s a girl, and she’s got symptoms that might be cancer, and I’m terrified. I would never, ever want another bunny or bunny caretaker to go through this, it’s so much simpler and safer to just get her spayed.

[Flopsie]

seems odd that she would say it’s risky. to me it’s riskier to get cancer from not spaying. are there any other reasons? costs?

[Minimoomin]

My bun is almost 8 months old, so she’s the right age for getting spayed. They don’t really care about the cost, just my mum believes that because rabbits are so small and that they don’t react well to the anesthetic that it’s an unsafe procedure.

[LittlePuffyTail]

The risks of reproduction cancer far outweigh the risk of surgery. The risk of cancer in intact females is extremely high.

You need to make sure the vet doing the spay is a bunny savvy vet. As a precaution, before any anaesthetic, my vet recommends bloodwork to make sure bunny is healthy before the procedure.

[Roberta]

When your Mum was your age her fears were probably quite well founded. Exotics medicine has come a very long way since then with special anaestesias, pain medication, antibiotics, gut motility drugs etc. Not to mention that the wounds are often glued to prevent the sutures tearing fragile skin.
If you have a good exotics vet in your area you could ask your Mum that you all go in for a baseline health check for your bunny, that way the vet could explain some of the new medications and procedures to your Mother and set her mind to rest.
One thing for sure, if you little girl starts getting hormonal and huffing, spraying and biting it will assist in convincing your Mum to her her spayed.

[JackRabbit]

As the others have said, pre-surgery exam and bunny savvy vet are important.

With any surgery, bunny or human, there’s always a bit of risk. But, with an 80% chance of reproductive cancer after age 2, and the likelihood that 85% of intact females older than that will develop reproductive cancer during their lives (I just found that second statistic the other day — ugh!), why take the chance with your precious bunny girl when it can be prevented?

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