Puberty?

[Paprika]

Hi everyone! Within the past week or so, my bunny Paprika has started to act out of the usual. She was born on 07/13/2016, so I thought that at her age if she is showing signs of reaching sexual maturity it would have come a bit later. Recently, she has started pooping EVERYWHERE. When we let her out, she no longer has any regard for pooping at any given second, anywhere. This is coming from a bunny that always used her litter boxes, she never even had any stray poops in her cage except ones I presume she knocked out of her litter box. Paprika used to either return to her litter box in her cage, or use a second one I have out while she is playing. In her cage, she still mainly uses it and always pees in it, but there are a bunch of “gifts” all over it now every day. She also never once peed outside of her cage, but she will now jump on the futon, pee, and them immediately jump down. She never had an issue with the futon before, so it surprised me when she did this. One of the times she did it, she jumped directly in front of my partner, piddled very fast, and then ran away immediately after. My partner was less than amused!

I had never seen her chin anything before either, but she literally is doing it to everything now. Whether it be her toys, tables, my hands/feet, even my partner’s slippers while they were being worn! Any all and things must be chinned now, according to her. Another new thing I have noticed is sometimes, while I’m petting her, she will hunker down and lift her tail. As her mom, this is slightly disturbing if she is truly hinting something! Other than all of this, she behaves normally, still binkying and giving kisses, as well as eating healthily (maybe a bit too much if anything!).

Are these signs of puberty, or is it too much freedom/getting lazy with her habits? If she is on the road to needing to be spayed, at what age is the safest for a female, and is there anything I can do to help control this until she is old enough to be fixed? Thanks a bunch!!

[Barrett]

I want to hear from other people, but Patton is going through basically the same thing. He’s not exhibiting any sexual behaviour, but the litterbox habits have been going out the window in recent days. He was born in June 2016 and I think it’s definitely his time.

 

If bunnies are anything like humans, they won’t all go through puberty at exactly the same age. Sounds like this is Paprika’s time. 

[Odette]

Odette started with a few markings outside her litter. Mostly places she wanted to keep the cats away from. Then she started peeing on the couch. She is six months old exactly and unspayed. I was waiting for six months and it snuck up on me. Now, I’m nervous. I’m doing it. I just want a little more time to prepare for the stress, if that makes sense.

But, anyway, this sounds pretty typical of what Odette did around the 4 month mark. She will still pee on the couch if we are not paying attention. Otherwise her messy litter habits are far better than they were when she first entered puberty. She doesn’t leave the droppings anymore. I don’t know how common a calming down period is, but that seems to be where we are. I think switching her from constant free range to part xpen helped enormously.

From what I’ve read, all of this gets better after a spay/neuter, but I’ll read on to hear what people who have post-spay/neuter experience say.

[Gina.Jenny]

better after the post-spay craze

[Vienna Blue in France]

Yup – Zou much calmer, less terroritorial (to me! Henry is another matter), and looooves to cuddle now (I have to get down on floor with her, but still!).

[Author]

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