Please Help-Female on male

The facts
Peanut- Bunny is coming up on 16 weeks/4 months old. Dutch/Nethie cross.

Jubby - 4 years old fell in love with Peanut at first sight. Is Neutered. Lop.

Peanut has had both her jabs and has been checked ''underneath'' both times by our vet who confirms she is female.

We bought a baby bunny around 4 weeks ago and brought her home to our 4 year old lop Jubby who fell in love with her at first sight and they bonded better (and quicker) than we ever thought. We were as of yesterday to the point that they would be seperated in their own hutches for feeding only overnight when we went to bed because she is still young and growing and Jubb is a big fatty and on excel lite LOL. So basically they would share a hutch from 9am - 10pm no problems what-so ever they loved it. Today when we put them in together we notice he was mounting her a bit. Thought nothing of it and went to work. When my husband came home he found HER mounting HIM!!!! So he seperated them as he has to go out again and didn't want one of them getting hurt. When i came home I put them together again and he seemed to be mounting her a lot again but i thought i'd better let them thrash it out as maybe he needed to reiterate his dominance (which she had always excepted). Things got rather heated and i saw him bite her so i took her out immediately but it was to late and he had already pulled hair out by her ear and made her bleed a little (which was heartbreaking) but she was fine in herself. I gave her some TLC and cleaned the wound with a animal anti bactirial wipe. Because she seemed so calm and not bothered at all I decided to give it one last go for tonight, plus i wanted to check she was ok with him. She, as normal, ran straight up to him licking his face but then she starts making grunting/purring noises, circling him and mounting him AGAIN. He does not like this but does not want to hurt her. I know it sounds weird but i can almost see the look of confusion in his face!!! They still laid down together cuddled up. Still licked each other etc I just had to keep intervining when they tried to mount each other and if anything she is trying to mount HIM more!!! So I have 2 questions
1. I know now we can not leave them together in a hutch unsupervised as he may hurt her again and I really don't want that. What can I do ....... keep intervining in the mounting or do they need to do that??? Obv I will now supervise them at all times when they are together.
2. Do i need to keep cleaning the wound or is it best to let her take care of herself. I think the wound has been caused by him pulling out her fur. It by her ear and whilst it is red and looks sore there is no blood present at all.

We are so upset because we really thought we had cracked it and as soon as she was on his food in a month or so, they could of lived together. Now i guess that won't happen until she is spayed and my vet says due to the risk he will not spay her until she is 6 months old. It's so sad they have to be seperate until February seeing as even after this they still love each other very much. I hate to seperate them like this but i don't know what else i can do?
Thanks for reading all that. Any help and advice will be greatly apprieciated.

Firstly I think you may have created a problem by seperating them every night. Had you left them together they *probably* would have been inseperable by now.

The mounting is a dominance thing....it is actually less to do with mating than you may think, the rabbit on top is dominating the other and they will need to do this to each other to establish a hierachy. During mounting it is normal for some fur to be pulled from the submitting rabbit and it is painfree. Ideally this process should not be inteferred with unless an actual fight i.e locking on a round the head and kicking with vocals, occurs. Once bonding has been started rabbits should not be split up at all for any lenght of time.

The grunting purring noise is a hormonal mating call, its known as buzzing.

Secondly her ear can be bathed with warm salt water twice daily until a scab has formed and then monitored from there on. The first sign of infection she needs to go to the vets.

Thanks so much for your reply.
I feel awful now! My husband said i should not of seperated them at night i just did not know what to do about the food situation. I've messed up big time.
I will bathe her ear twice a day like you said.
What do you think i should do now?
Keep them seperate until she is spayed or shall i put them together for good now.
This is the first time i've done this, i feel terrible.

Has he been castrated and if so how long ago?

Yes he was at about 6 months and he is nearly 4 years old now.

It is possible to rebond them now BUT there is a chance as her hormones kick in she may start to give him a hard time and that could lead to problems later on. Do you know of a vet that will spey any younger than 6 months?

Otherwise waiting until she is neutered and recovered will give the surrest shot at success second time round.

Sadly everytime you attempt a rebond it seems to get tougher :?

The thing is they are still very much bonded. Apart from the mounting which he was doing once a day anyway at least. They have no problem with each other even after this and will still want to see each other everyday. Is it ok to let him hurt her like he did tonight? Is that just normal? It not that they are not bonded. They have spent every single day together 9am-10pm for the past three or more weeks. It is litterally only today there has been a problem. Or am I over-reacting?
Now i just don't know what to do. Do i put them back in and let them work it out. Or not let them see each other until my husband or I are in the house? I had told the vet everything I was doing and he said I was doing great and once she was off the junior excel in around a month to go ahead and let them live permently together. He never once told me I was doing something wrong.
Very confused.

Sadly a lot of vets dont fully understand rabbit psychology and behaviour, if you run a search on bonding on the forum you will find hundreds of threads relating to it.

Did he bite her whilst mounting her? If so it was probably an accident that he broke the skin.

"Is it ok to let him hurt her like he did tonight?"
:shock:
Um no.
Let her get bigger before they are in a hutch at night. Maybe they can run around outside but it sounds like he's being the dominate one in a hutch.
It would be a sa\hame to hurt the baby bunny for any reason.

Yes he did bite her whilst mounting her. He is a gentle soul and as i keep saying is VERY much in love with her. Yesterday is litterally the very 1st time he has done anything like that. Also she is not in any way scared of him at all. This morning they are both at the sides of their hutch nose to nose ''buzzing'' and biting the bars which i have come to know as ''please mummy we want to be together''.
Our vet is actually somewhat of a rabbit guru and has told me things and helped me over the 4 years i have had rabbits with advice only rivalled by this forum. That is why i trusted him on this subject.
I did do many searches on this forum and read a whole lot of other site and maybe its me being blind but i never saw anything that lead me to believe that I was doing something wrong by seperating them at night. I thought bonding was a slow and careful process. Not leaving them un-attended whilst I slept and see what happens.
I guess all rabbits are different but mine very much seem like they want to be together again. I don't know how i will tackle the food problem but i'm going to let them live together (see really is not all that small now, not what I would call baby bunny anymore). I will let you all know how they get on. Any more tips are appreiciated.

With regard to the food problem. I would start weaning them onto the same food. You will find that many people do not use a junior food and use the same food for all rabbits of all ages.

There are a number of sites which have information about bonding on them including http://www.allearssac.org/bonding.html Personally I do not advocate separating buns once bonding has been started unless there are very specific reasons. From your description I am not sure if your male was 'nipping' rather than 'biting', nipping when bonding is very normal whilst they are settling down.

Is it possible for you to bring your rabbits indoors for a few days so that can be watched more easily to see that they are settling in ok, before they are finally put out in the hutch together.

With regard to speying your new rabbit, I would discuss the possibility of booking a date as early as possible for her. Many vets do spey from 4 months old provided that they are over 1 kg in weight.

Hi there jrn1310 and thanks so much for your response it is very helpful.
I forgot to mention in there my bunnies live in-doors all the time To me they are like my family and I love having them with us. Sorry i believe I should of been saying ''cage'' instead of hutch. So yes they are in all the time under our watchful eye and are only out of eye sight when we are at work or aleep.
With regards to her injury, looking at the wound today whilst cleanising it with salt water, it looks like he has pulled her hair out around her ear rather than actually biting her. She doesn't have any bite marks or anything like that it's just red and sore. Not as round but prob the size of a 20p coin. She is not in any pain at all and let me gently wipe the wound this morning. She is eating, drinking, toliet etc as normal.
From that llink you posted (thank you, really helpful) they def are not fighting. I don't know how her fur got pulled out like that but I think he was ''nipping'' her. He has never gone to attack her, all he has ever done is mount and ''nip''.
I will start weaning as of today. He is currently on excel lite but whilst he is a big rabbit he is not overweight (can still clean his bottom, runs a round like a lunatic etc) so what would you recommend from them to both go onto? Excel or Excel lite?
Thanks once again you have been a great help.

Hi, I'm not sure if this will be of much use but this is a link to the thread I posted when I was bonding my two.

http://forums.rabbitrehome.org.uk/showthread.php?t=100951

Thanks Sarah.

Just an update, I have just been round to see my vet again and seek his professional advice. He said I can have her spayed in December as late as possible (around the 19th) and for the time being to keep them within sight,smell and sound of each other (which they are their cages indoors are 3 inchs apart) and to let the play together outside/inside as long as there is no fighting. Once she has been spayed, leave it a week or so (as long as she takes to heal and feel better) and then start the full bonding again.
I can assure you once I have them bonded after that I will never seperate them again. This is also good because now I can wean her onto his food over time and when they are ready to live with each other everything should be fine. I feel a lot more positive and a lot less llike a bad bunny mummy than I did last night.

Often when males mount females they will hold onto the other rabbit using their fur, this is how fur can easily be pulled out on the back or nexk, this is all quite normal.

jrn1310 said:

Often when males mount females they will hold onto the other rabbit using their fur, this is how fur can easily be pulled out on the back or nexk, this is all quite normal.

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Even if he rips the fur out completely leaving it red and sore?

Got them out in the hall way together for an hour this evening and it went pretty well. The first 5 mons seemed like endless mounting (by both of them) until she (peanut) finally seemed to submit and lay down. He laid down about 10 seconds later and she immediately started grooming and licking his face I would say it was 60/40- 60% laying down or sitting together grooming and 40% running around, chasing, mounting etc. She does not seem scared or frightened in anyway so i guess that is a good sign.

I am going to move her onto his food (excel lite) so that she is all ready for after her op to start proper full time bonding. From what I can gather from doing a search on here after she is 100% recovered from her op, give them a full day together and if they are getting on well (does this mean the mounting has stopped?) they stay together from that moment on. Am i on the right page here?

TIA

I am SOOOOOOOO happy today!!!
Last night we got the buns in the hallway again and there was NO mounting!!!
None at all!!! They played, both dancing around throwing their legs in the air. Massive binky's from both of them and they snuggled for about 20 mins. I swear I think Peanut was having a PMT moment for a few days (can't blame her ) still going to have her spayed in Dec but it was so much more like the old days I am super relieved!

nemmie said:

I am SOOOOOOOO happy today!!!
Last night we got the buns in the hallway again and there was NO mounting!!!
None at all!!! They played, both dancing around throwing their legs in the air. Massive binky's from both of them and they snuggled for about 20 mins. I swear I think Peanut was having a PMT moment for a few days (can't blame her ) still going to have her spayed in Dec but it was so much more like the old days I am super relieved!

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Yay!