Possibly Expecting babies.. What do I do?

[karma]

Ok, before assumptions start: I recently rescued two young Polish buns (roughly 5 months old) from a bad situation. I was assured they were brothers and had been together since birth. The person I received the buns from owned the parents as well. They are bonded and very close to one another so I never separated them. I put them together in a super yard xlt, huge upgrade from the small cage they had lived in together. Both are a bit skittish/they’ve never been handled. One is quite a bit bigger than the other and I recently noticed the larger one (Mr hopington) humping the smaller one (panda) a lot.. To the point that poor panda sleeps in the water tray. Though I never noticed panda really be bothered by these sexual assaults so out of curiousiy I gender checked both of them and while it was pretty difficult to do with skittish buns half trying to kill themselves to escape me. It was pretty obvious that one has balls and one doesn’t.

So I’m pretty sure Panda is a female. I wasn’t planning on baby bunnies, just trying to give these two a better life and I’ve never had baby bunnies before. I know I’ll have to separate them before she gives birth or he’ll get her again. But she seems to get very upset when she can’t find him/ when I let them out for free roam time I have to do it one at a time because they are so skittish and I’m trying to work one on one with them to socialize them. When he is out of the pen she will hop around frantically and then scrunch herself up in a corner flat and flatten her ears and she won’t move until I put him back in the pen. Then she hops over to him and greets/grooms him.

I’m currently trying to track down a trustworthy vet who doesn’t want 500$ to neuter the boy, but until then, any advice on what to do, what she needs, anything I should know? I’ve had bunnies before, but I’ve never had a litter of bunnies.

[tobyluv]

Here are a couple of articles that might be helpful to you:

http://www.rabbit.org/care/babies.html

http://www.bio.miami.edu/hare/surpriselitter.html

You should go ahead and separate your rabbits now. If Panda is pregnant and with you not knowing how far along she is (the mating could have happened before you got them) she could have the babies and get pregnant again immediately if she is still with him. Rabbits can even mate through cage bars, so you have to be sure that they have no physical contact. Also, a male can still be fertile for a month or more after his neuter, so you can’t let them be together until more than a month has passed after his surgery.

If you don’t mind giving your general location, we might be able to suggest some vets for you to try. Now would be a good time to get the male neutered, then you can re-bond he and Panda after the babies have been weaned.

[karma]

I live in North East Ohio, near canton Ohio.

[karma]

And separating them puts me in the position of one bun will get the whole Super yard.. Roughly 6ft long by 3 1/ft wide and one bun will have to go into a extra large dog crate roughly 3 1/2 ft long by 2 ft wide.. Both will still get free run time, but deciding which gets the smaller space will be hard.

[Azerane]

A couple of things to consider, your girl may not be a girl. Rabbit scrotal sacs are pink and lack fur, and so they actually have little “pouches” that they can be pulled up into in their fur between their legs. In a situation where they are being handled and don’t want to be, it’s not uncommon for them to withdraw their testes in this manner. The other thing to note is that males do hump other males, it’s a dominance behaviour. That being said, your bunny still might be a female so it would be worth separating them until you know for sure.

I would actually suggest putting your female in the smaller pen for now just so it’s easier to keep an eye on her. Rabbit gestation is 28-31 days so i would mark the date on a calendar from when you saw them mounting. She’ll need a nest box lined with hay but not until a day or so before she’s due. A box big enough for her to jump in and turn around in without stepping on babies and with high enough sides so babies don’t climb out . If she is pregnant, once the babies start moving around more you’ll need to consider the bar spacing on the cage as a safety risk, and at about 3 weeks it might be worth switching the female and babies into the larger pen and your male into the smaller one. As mentioned, they can mate through bars.

Hope that helps

[karma]

Thank you Azerane, for your advice. My it’s a girl theory was based on a few things other than the lack of testicle. The drastic size/build difference the obvious male is large and stocky, longer ears and a thicker heavier head, while panda is much more petite. I took the size difference as perhaps just genetics and eating less than the more dominant one at first. I know males will hump each other as dominance displays, but what peaked my curiosity in the gender situation is while panda isn’t always too keen on the act she doesn’t seem bothered much either, sometimes she will run off, but always goes right back to him and lays right back down. And Mr. Hopington rarely shows any of the other dominant behaviors towards her. I managed to get her in a blanket earlier so she couldn’t flail and hurt herself and flip her over and get a better look and she is most definitely female. The superyard pen is open and I can step over the side right into it, so I think I’ll be putting my boy in the dog crate as it is completely enclosed and he can/has jumped the side of the Super yard before. Once I separate them, my worry is him busting out to find her unsupervised and potentially getting hurt. She’s not big enough, or perhaps brave enough to take the leap to freedom. The Super yard is one of the plastic child outdoor play pens, the hexagon ones that can change shape, the holes are maybe an inch wide and the dog crate is solid plastic around the bottom with 2 to 3 inch plastic vent slits all the way around the roof with a metal door that has square holes.

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