Graeme27Uk
Warren Scout
Can anyone explain what would cause happily bonded bunnies to lunge at each other and rip into each other????
Can anyone explain what would cause happily bonded bunnies to lunge at each other and rip into each other????
What age/sex? Are there any other rabbits? You need to give a bit more info!
Bit more info here
Can we clarify - how old is the buck exactly? Has he been with them for 3 weeks already? If so, he should be older than 8 weeks now mustn't he, they don't normally leave mum until 8 weeks old. How were they originally bonded? Are they now in the enclosure formerly occupied just by the two girls?
Well we got him on the 17th July and he was approx 6-8 weeks old, and we've had him 3 weeks. So i guess that makes him about 11-12 weeks at most.
Long story...
We got Smudge first of all, she is about 2, we had her neutered and then decided to get her some company and so we got Frosty (male). Bonded them on neutral territory and then had him neutered. About 6 months later we found Cookie and fell in love and so decided after lots of thought to get a third bun and again bonded them all on neutral territory and so forth, again getting Cookie neutered when she was old enough.
All was happy and lovely in bunnyland. We had three bonded loved-up bunnies all neutered and so "no" hormones etc... They all cuddled up with each other, slept together in a big bunny-ball of fluff, etc...
Unfortunately Frosty died under GA just over a month ago. The girls were obviously upset and missing him. We said we were not going to get another bunny, but we found Rufus and again fell in love. Maybe this is where we went wrong.
We let Rufus settle in to our house in a separate room away from the girls and when he seemed confident enough we introduced all three to each other on neutral ground as usual. They all seemed to get on ok after a while and were even grooming each other (Rufus hasn't quite got the idea he is supposed to groom them as well but he joins in).
We left them in neutral territory for a few more days to ensure that there were no fisticuffs and everything was good. So we moved them up to the bunny room and after some initial chasing, things settled down.
They were all ok, feeding with each other, grooming each other, laying with each other and so forth. This morning Cookie and Smudge were laying into each other big time which was really out of character, and it was Smudge (the alpha female) starting the fighting.
Completely out of the blue. One moment Smudge was grooming Cookie, next they were seriously fighting.