rescued a buddy for shuggy

[Sugarbear]

We have been toying with the idea to get a buddy for Sugarbear for some time now.  We went to a shelter a early last month and it was tough to see 400 rabbits in a house, very overwhelming.  Yesterday we went to an animal control shelter ( Dupage for those near chicago) and visited two rabbits we saw online.  One they called Dolly, looks like a polish – dutch?? mix all black with a white paw and white dot on her nose, was skittish and tried to get out of our session.  Dolly was the main rabbit we wanted to see.   We asked to see any other dwarf rabbits.  Shuggy is small, even for a Polish.  They brought out a Brown with black nose and boots netherland named Fiona.  She was scared at first but warmed up to us pretty quickly.  She had been spayed 7/7/10 at an estimated 5 1/2 months.  We put her on hold pending a Bunny Date set up for today.  We brought Shuggy in for his meeting and he was scared. Alot of barking, meowing,  and people are frightining to a rabbit who is used to our quiet house.   They set up a temporary pen for the meeting.  Shuggy is a very calm, relaxed, low key rabbit who loves being pet and always comes up and puts his head down to be pet.  This led us to believe he would not be aggressive for a 1st  meeting.  We sat with Fiona in the pen they set up and after she warmed up to us we brought in Shug.  At first, he was ignoring her, just checking out his surroundings.  She seemed interested in him though.  After awhile, they ended up in the same hay box after some mutual face sniffing and head ducking.  Neither wanted to be dominant at that point.  After some more checking out and sniffing, he tried to hump her head, which we quickly stopped, for fear of him getting his peenie bitten and her having bad memories of their meeting.  We seperated them and he tried again.  We ended the session for awhile.  We spent about 20 more minutes of bonding with Fiona and reintroduced Shuggiebear.  He immediately moved toward her again, trying to mount her again.  We seperated them and noticed he had some wetness near his genital area.  *We had went to have him neutered a few weeks ago–the doctor checked with an ultrasound and couldn’t find any testicles. See previous post in health area of site.*  It seemed he was a bit musky down there after that.  We weren’t sure if this was his scent glands or maybe something else.  Any thoughts on this?

We ended up adopting her and renaming her Cinnabun.  We set up a pen for her in the other room which is off-limits to Shug.  We will start to try to bond them soon.  We got home with her about 2 hrs ago.  Her set up is pictured below.  

 

Here is Cinnabun…

We had a netherland dwarf for 12 years and he was a bundle of energy…  We hope she can get Shuggy more playfull and Shug might level a netherland out…

[jerseygirl]

Congratulations on your new girl! ope she’s settling in nicely.

 

*We had went to have him neutered a few weeks ago–the doctor checked with an ultrasound and couldn’t find any testicles. See previous post in health area of site.* It seemed he was a bit musky down there after that. We weren’t sure if this was his scent glands or maybe something else. Any thoughts on this?

Firstly, I’m assuming Cinnabun is fixed? I recall when you posted about Sugars teste situation and did some reading. I meant to pass on this info at the time…. From what I read, sometimes undescended testes can be merely a streak of tissue and would be hard to detect via ultrasound.
However, it’s important for them to be found and removed as this tissue is not meant to be inside the body long term. The temp is too warm and it can lead to problems.
It would be good for your vet to follow up on Sugars condition and or speak with a rabbit specialist.

To me it seems Sug is showing signs of an sexually excited intact rabbit with the wetness in genital region and musky scent. If Cinnabun is fixed, obviously you don’t need to worry about pregnancy. But as I already mentioned, Sugars “absent” testicles could be a health risk.

Edit to Add:  I was able to find where I read about this. en.allexperts.com/q/Rabbits-703/200…cended.htm  The response given to this posters question was by Dana Krempels. If you’re not familiar with her, she is not a vet but a very rabbit savvy scientist. She communicate with a lot of vets, writes for vet journals and runs an online list regarding rabbits. In short, she knows her stuff! ;o)

[Monkeybun]

Aww Cinnabun is adorable!!! Congrats on the new addition Hopefully Sugarbear can get his manly problem fixed soon. Maybe check with another vet for second opinion?

[Sarita]

She’s so pretty.

About Sugarbear – the rescue that I used to help at rescued a load of rabbits from a hoarder. A few of the males testicles did not descend and the vet said they were “encapsulated” – I think that was the word but don’t quote me on it. They never descended and she did end up neutering both rabbits (I think it was just 2 or maybe 3). But when we looked at them to sex them we did it the lazy way and saw not testicles so thought they were females. Of course, being a vet and doing it right she said they were male and we knew they were not neutered. So I wonder if that could perhaps be the case with SugarBear.

[Sugarbear]

Yes, Cinnabun is fixed, newly actually. We are going to wait about a month after her spay date to try to bond them.
We are taking Shuggie to another vet to get a second opinion about his testicles, to check if they are cryptorchids or encapsulated. Our current vet did sex him as a male previously.
In this new doctor’s office, they do not have an ultrasound machine on the premises though, so hopefully she can tell otherwise or we can take him in a second time to determine for sure. We are also taking Cinnabun for a checkup, since we just adopted her yesterday.

[Sarita]

Keep us update :~)

[Deleted User]

nice pen Cinnabun has. What are those panels, are they plastic baby gates?

[Sugarbear]

The pen is one we bought at farm and fleet. I think its just called a pet pen.  We saw the same thing at walmart sold as kid play pen.

[FunnyBunnyLove]

May I ask how much that pen was? I still have my temporary set up for Honey Bunny. She doesn’t seem to mind. She’s very small, but an actual “place” of her own would be great.

[Beka27]

She’s very cute! Be careful with that pen that she doesn’t chew on it. That plastic isn’t very sturdy and can splinter off and be ingested. If it’s just a temporary set-up, I’d say it’s okay… but for long-term, you’d want to do a metal xpen.

[Sugarbear]

The pen is temporary.  We hope she will be free range with Shugg,  We used the pen for him and he never bit at it and she does not even care its there. We will watch for her biting it. It was sold as a dog pen so I assumed it was chew proof.  Hopefully the bonding goes well so we should not have to use it to much longer.

[Lunar~Atticus]

OMG she is sooo pretty!! she looks JUST a mini version of my lunar! i do hope the bonding goes very well when you start it!!! she is just adorable!

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