squabbling girls

I had two pairs of mixed sex buns that I then introduced to each other and they have been living as a foursome for the past six months. They are all neutered. The 2 girls have been really close, but over the past couple of weeks have started growling and sitting apart from each other. Yesterday I found that both of them had blood from little nips on their ears. Does anyone have any suggestions what to do about this? They happily eat a heap of greenstuff together. The problem doesn't seem to be related to the presence of the boys as I just had them out alone and they're still enemies.

Bump - anyone?

Hmmmm I must admit, if they are drawing blood I would be tempted to separate, :? but :? its a difficult one.
I've just recently bonded together a group of 4, 3 girls and 1 boy. They've been together 4-6 weeks now i guess and they seem to get along fine but one girl will chase or just nip at another but no blood or anything anywhere just some pulled fur. Other than that on occasion they seem quite tranquil at times and will flop out together and eat togther etc so I'm just monitoring it as I think it may die down as spring leaves and summer arrives and perhaps there will be less hormones flying about (mine are all speyed too but this time of year still seems to cause bother)
It is difficult though as I used to have a group of 5 up to a few months ago and a couple of the bucks in that group started to argue, fur pull and chase a bit then one morning I found one depressed and upon closer inpection he had a nasty gash under his chin that the other had inflicted and so i had to remove him from the group. :?
I'm not sure what to advise, follow your instinct I think. Perhaps but them all into a reduced area of space that is also neutral to them all and try a rebond?
Sorry I'm not much help!

Can you confirm ... you have 2 pairs of a boy / girl partnership.

Can you also confirm if they can see or smell each other


Sometimes if they can see or smell each other or if they are put out on ground where another pair of rabbits has been this can result in something called referred agression where one of the partners will attack or nip the other partner.

For now I would be reluctant to separate them, however I would move the rabbits away from each other so that they cannot see or smell each other and ensure that they are not put out on territory where the other pair has been.

janice-arc said:

Can you confirm ... you have 2 pairs of a boy / girl partnership.

Click to expand...

No, they started off as 2 pairs - but they've lived together as a foursome for six months now.
I put them all into a smaller cage yesterday, but there was a scrap between them again this morning so I've put the 2 original pairs in seperate runs today.