Thoughts on spaying?

[Cue]

We’re seriously considering spaying our youngest piggy, Cheese, who’s seven months old. Our last two piggies we lost to metastasized uterine cancer and a mammary tumor, respectively. We have a super experienced, skilled, and overall just great vet for our squeaks who would do this.
Cheese Stick has only relatively recently recovered from a mild URI and we are still keeping an eye on possible bumblefoot. can she safely go under knowing this? Will either of these increase risk of an infection? She’s still quite baby and I’m sure can wait until she’s 100% clear.
Any thoughts on this? Any opinions?

 

[Free Ranger]

I've no personal experience but I've picked up a few things from this forum. The first is that female rabbits apparently have a very high incidence of cancers associated with the reproductive tract (like 80% by the age of 6) and so they are spayed almost as routine, but female piggies are not the same and they do not. There may well be genetic links though so one factor to consider is whether Cheese is related to your beloved rainbow piggies. You may well have just had very bad luck - I can't think of any of my dozen or so girls having either of these problems - it's not actually something I worry about. I mainly worry about stones! Two related older girls who came to me had been previously spayed because of ovarian cysts which gave them large, swollen sides and balding flanks, and they came through their ops OK but there are even alternative treatments for this now in the form of hormone injections or even implants to avoid a surgery.
The second thing is that in many UK rescues single boars are routinely neutered before they go out into the world again, but single sows are not routinely spayed - it is a bigger operation and thus more of a risk, so the hope is that females can be easily paired up with another girl or neutered boy.
Sometimes people spay hoping for the option to create a stable girl/boy pair in the future and that's a lovely idea. My gentle, neutered George was certainly hoping for lady company during lockdown after he lost his companion but unfortunately Zara had other ideas and fought him like a lion until he ran squealing! So if you are thinking of bringing in a boy for Cheese be prepared that it might not be romance!

As to the question of general safety about the op I can't answer that one. I've lost piggies in the hours after ops so anything involving general anaesthetic makes me wary but of course we'd do it again if we had to. Small furries can be so unpredictable in how they react. I must say, if it was me personally, I wouldn't opt for a precautionary spay - I'd actually wait and if it became necessary in the future for health I'd cross that bridge when I came to it. But that's just me. Take care

 

[Piggies&buns]

Yes, @Free Ranger is right - there are big differences between piggies and rabbits both in terms of health and bonding ability, so spaying and neutering rabbits of either sex absolutely is routine and has to be done. Something I am very used to given I’ve kept rabbits for 35 years!

Female piggies are generally not spayed as routine. It’s only done when the medical need arises. Obviously for anybody wanting to keep a mixed sex pair of piggies, the boar has to be neutered so there isn’t the risk of pregnancy.

Rabbits must be spayed and neutered regardless of their sex.
Female rabbits have high cancer rates (80% by around 2 years old age) so have to be spayed as soon as they are old enough at around 6 months of age.
Equally, unspayed or unneutered rabbits will not bond - even a female pair. They will fight, be too territorial, Too hormonal. Even in a male/female rabbit pair, if the buck is neutered then obviously the pregnancy risk is removed but the female must still be spayed to prevent the cancer risk, but also because she will be very grumpy, territorial, will likely fight with the male and have false pregnancies.

If you want to elect to do this, then you would obviously need to have that discussion with your vet as to whether they are willing to do a preventative spay. They would also most likely want your piggy to be as healthy as possible before going under any anaesthetic

 

[furryfriends (TEAS)]

If it wasn't so expensive, I would have all sows spayed before rehoming. The only reason I would do this, is that I have an excellent vet, with lots of experience with spaying sows.

 

[Cue]

Thanks you’ll; that’s sort of what I thought. both of the last piggies I lost were related, mother and daughter, and nothing could be done because they were so old. It was definitely ugly one way or another. Our vet has done hormone injections for our bird so we could ask about those for a piggie.

Her cagemate is not spayed however, so it might be better to just leave it.

 

[Betsy]

Out of the 6 sows I have/had only 1 had to be spayed because of ovarian cysts. As the saying goes "If it ain't broke, don't fix it". Unless there is a good reason for your girl to be spayed (ovarian cysts) why put her under the risk of a GA?

 

[Merab]

Like @Betsy and others here, I’ve only had sows spayed to remove ovarian cysts.