Newly spayed bunny terrified of everything now??

[skipbrady1]

So my girlfriend and I just got a beautiful black female rabbit a few weeks ago. When we got her she was FULL of charisma and super fun and seemed super happy.  She loved to be picked up and held, she loved to lick us all the time, and she wasnt afraid of anything!!  We got her spayed a week ago now.  From the research i have found it seems it can take 2 weeks or 2 months for a rabbit to fully heal and fully be “back to normal” or for the hormones to actually calm down.  But now when shes out of her cage she barely lets us touch her, she HATES being picked up, anytime she hears a sound even if its not very loud she freaks and stomps and flies around the house like shes in danger.  I know it takes time and effort to get your rabbit to trust you and love you and be super friendly again.  But my girlfriend is loosing patience, but i am not.  I just want her to be happy and even if she doesnt get back to the rabbit she was, i still want her to trust us and enjoy being out of her house/cage and not be so scared.  

Any advice and help would be very appreciated.  And here is a picture of our little Stormy.

[Krista]

She probably doesn’t want to be picked up do to still having some pain from the spay, especially if it was only a week ago. The vet was probably a scary experience and if you guys only had her for a few weeks before the spay she may just be warming up to her surroundings again. You could try rewarding her with treats to get her to come up to you guys. The picking up is understandable though she may still be in pain or feel discomfort in her stomach. I would just let her do her own thing till she feels comfortable with her surroundings again. If she is still coming up to you guys then she is comfortable with you. She won’t be running around and back to her old self until her wound heals probably. I know my dogs were pretty lethargic the first week after their spay. They hurt for about two weeks after their spay. It’s a lot more invasive than a neuter and will take longer to heal. Does she have a room she is normally in? Does she free roam or is she only out for playtime? As I said, she may just need to get comfortable with her room again. She’s probably still terrified from the vet. Don’t loose patience with her:3 remind your girlfriend that your little bun just went through a scary surgery and is probably still feeling discomfort so she won’t be back to her old self right away. It will probably take 2 weeks for her to bounce back. There are several people on this site that have had rabbits spayed they may be able to help more than I can.

[skipbrady1]

Ya i have been telling her over and over that it takes time for them to heal and to get back to there normal selves. But i told my gf if she just wants me to take her out and take care of her and play with her cause shes loosing her patience i have no problem with that. Cause i love the little girl shes super cool and i really think once shes healed and her hormones calm down and shes back down to a good energy level and not so afraid that she will be the fun loving awesome bunny she was before. She only comes out for play time at the moment. I really wish i could let her roam free through the house whenever she wants. But right now we rent and sometimes she likes to chew on the baseboards of the walls. Everything else in the house is ours so none of our stuff im worried about. I just want her to be happy and not in the cage all the time. But you can definately tell a huge difference from when shes out and running around to when shes in her cage. You can tell she feels comfortable and safe in her cage cause she always comes up to me or my girlfriend to be pet and it seems like she likes it. Ya i hope that someone that has gone through this themselves will reply to this post eventually. But i very much appreciate your advice and words of wisdom . I just think she needs time to get fully healed and for the hormones to fully be out of her system or lower or however it works lol. But unfortunately we cannot let her out all the time when we arent here or in the other room cause we also have 4 guinea pigs in our living room and there cages are only about 12 inches high and she has jumped into there cages before and we had to get her out quick. Otherwise we would probably let her just run around the house all the time. But thanks very much for the advice and we will keep working with her.

Oh and i dont know if i mentioned in my first post. Shes like deathly afraid everytime we are in the kitchen cooking, its really weird. Anytime she hears spoons or pans or bowls or any sort she gets super scared and we have no idea why.

[Ceta]

Something similar happened to one of my rabbits she was spayed a month ago. She used to beg to be picked up and now she is terrified to be picked up and at times she will let me pet her again but then I will have to pick her up to cut her nails or brush her shedding coat and then all progress seems to reset and then I can barly walk by her without her running.

[skipbrady1]

Yup that pretty much sounds like our rabbit. She seems to get worse everyday. Unfortunately we cannot let her roam around the house and be free all day. We have guinea pigs and she loves to jump in their cage. And she also keeps chewing on the baseboards all around the house and this is a rental. We do not own the house so now we have to sand and repaint all the areas she decided to chew. Its like a lose lose situation because i know shes angry cause shes in the cage a lot. But if we let her out she goes nuts and chews everything shes not supposed to. We need a backyard where we can just let her run around all day but unfortunately we dont. So we are probably going to have to give her up because shes wrecking our house. It sucks cause she can be a super cool bunny sometimes. But thats like 2% of the time … the rest of the time shes just insane.

[Krista]

Online there are playpens you can get for like $20 on Amazon. They have a covered thick bottom and a mesh top. I got one for Bilbo because I have a large dog that needs time out and they have to share the living room. They come in all different sizes I got Bilbo a large which is meant for a dog and I put his hideaway and toys in it with his bowls and hay for most of the day. He spends a lot of energy in it it seems because his appetite has increased since I’ve bought it. It cost about $20 for this size and is in an octagon shape. Easily folds up also into a bag for storage. It zips up and has mesh windows on the sides for them to view out of it:3

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