Not sure what to do... new aggressive behavior

Can I possibly pick your brains a little bit..? Please bear with me if I ramble a bit

I'm having a few issues with one of the bunnies here, Emily. Basically she's started lunging and growling over the last few months and she managed to get me yesterday because I made the mistake of walking past her in the run. I'm thinking it may have something to do with her partner Jack and the fact that he's a right grumpy devil, when Janice bonded them he latched onto her ear and left a big hole in it! He still chases her a fair bit although there's never any fur pulled these days because she knows what he's like so moves before it can get to that. She is quite jumpy for want of a better word, when he goes near her bum because that's normally when he nips / chases.

Having said all that I don't think she's unhappy with him, I still see them grooming each other a fair bit. Believe it or not I think Jack does actually like Emily in his way.

Jack really is a very grumpy boy where other rabbits are concerned, I have to be extremely careful about making sure he NEVER see's another rabbit because he really attacks Emily if he does. He came to me originally with another rabbit but after being here a year I decided to split them because he was making her miserable, the thing is in that pairing there was never any grooming or any sign that they liked each other at all.


I'm at a bit of a loss what to do in this situation. Emily wasn't at all like this when she came to live with me, and while she'll still happily sit and have nose rubs, I have to be very careful about getting my hand close enough to do it.

I don't want to seperate Jack & Emily because as I've said there does seem to be a bond there, and if I had to do that Jack would have to be a single bun because of his past history.

The only other idea I can come up with is that maybe they'd benefit from having more space. They're in a HH combo so have a 6x2x2 hutch over a 6x4x2 run. I'm very limited as to what I could do to give them more room though, I've already taken over quite a chunk of my parents garden for the rabbits and I know they don't really want me to commandeer any more of it.
If people think more space would help though I'll have to do some creative thinking to come up with a way.


Has anyone got any views / opinions / advice.... any thing I haven't thought of etc??

Hmmm.... do they get time out of their run, or is that they only form of exercise they have access to. Emily may be a little frustrated if this is the case.

They do come out but not on any set routine. I let them free range in the garden or I have a large area of patio next to the house that I section off for them, but both options require supervision. I also have 3 other pairs so I have to try and fit in time for them all to be out... which can be hard when you have to supervise the whole time.

I've thought about getting some sort of run for them but I'd have to supervise if I got the fold up metal type and the more permanent wood / wire runs with secure lids aren't really bigger than where they live :?

Has no-one else got any views?

It might be worth getting her checked over by the vet to ensure that she has not got an underlying health problem which is not evident particuarly if this is new behaviour.

Have you changed your washing powder, or could you smell of anything or any other animal that Emily might not like? She has probably become used to the dog by now, but maybe there is some other smell that is new?

As I said on FB, have her eyes checked. And like Janice says, her general health. I am sometimes a bit unsure about Luna, too, whether she is happy with Snoopy and Penny. They chase and nip her a lot, but once in a while they also groom her.

tigerbabe said:

They do come out but not on any set routine. I let them free range in the garden or I have a large area of patio next to the house that I section off for them, but both options require supervision. I also have 3 other pairs so I have to try and fit in time for them all to be out... which can be hard when you have to supervise the whole time.

I've thought about getting some sort of run for them but I'd have to supervise if I got the fold up metal type and the more permanent wood / wire runs with secure lids aren't really bigger than where they live :?

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If you wanted them to have more space you could always extend the run? There are some piccies here of how I am currently doing mine http://forums.rabbitrehome.org.uk/showthread.php?t=192934.

To be honest (and not digging at you in any way) I dont think 6ft by 4ft can be classed as a "run". For me a run is exercise space and bunnies cant do much exercising in a run of that size. I am not saying its inadequate as that is the rpsca guidelines, just that they could do with either a larger run or more time free ranging to let off steam.

I might pop her along to the vet just to be safe, although she had a general health check when she was vaccinated not too long ago. I'm not convinced that's the problem though, she was fine while out in the patio run today but as soon as I put her back home she was very jumpy and lunging again.

There are no new smells that I can think of.

Mark has suggested maybe there's a fox or something coming around the run at night which is making her nervous at any movement while she's in there. There was something out there the other night, I heard a noise and went down to check on them and the dog chased something, I heard whatever it was scrambling over the fence.

Snowberry - the hutch and run is their living space, it's the minimum amount of space they ever have and in an ideal world I'd like them to have more permanent space, sadly this isn't an ideal world. I do have a patio area where I've got a gate I can pull out to basically turn it into a huge walk in run for them. It's more than big enough as an exercise area and they also have the run of the entire garden sometimes but both of these require me to be free to keep an eye on them. And they also have to be part of a rotation so that everybun gets a chance to go out.
It's hard to explain but because of where my hutch/run and bunny sheds are I can't extend it... actually I could possibly add 1ft to make it 6x5 but if I'm going to start doing that I'd like to make it into a walk-in run and we can't afford to do that just yet unfortunately. I was thinking maybe more space would help and if that's the general view I will try and work something out... but at the moment I'm not sure what.

As a completely different approach - have you thought of bonding them into a six and just having one really big area for them?

When Apache came into rescue he was incredibly aggressive, he is the only rabbit that has landed me in hospital, he really did latch on and not let go and neutering didn't help. It turned out to be a territorial dominance thing. Once he was bonded into my group of 15 he was a different rabbit. Jacob is the boss and he worshipped the ground Jacob hopped on and allowed people to stroke him, feed him and cuddle him. Take him out of the group and try and pair him up and the aggression returned. Just a thought but maybe your stroppy lad could do with somebun to be his boss?

chloaster said:

As a completely different approach - have you thought of bonding them into a six and just having one really big area for them?

When Apache came into rescue he was incredibly aggressive, he is the only rabbit that has landed me in hospital, he really did latch on and not let go and neutering didn't help. It turned out to be a territorial dominance thing. Once he was bonded into my group of 15 he was a different rabbit. Jacob is the boss and he worshipped the ground Jacob hopped on and allowed people to stroke him, feed him and cuddle him. Take him out of the group and try and pair him up and the aggression returned. Just a thought but maybe your stroppy lad could do with somebun to be his boss?

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I'd love one big group or even 2 fours, unfortunately the rabbits don't seem to share my enthusiasm!
I've already tried bonding 2 pairs into a 4, it seemed to be a success when they were at Helen's but as soon as I brought them home it started going wrong and despite me starting from scratch and persevering I had to give up when Simon got bitten right by his eye.
And those were chilled out bunnies compared to Jack! He tore a chunk out of a french lops ear and terrorised another bun at a rescue near me when she tried bonding him (she actually said to me that he wanted to kill the french lop!), then I took him to Janice as a last chance. I really thought he was going to end up as a single bunny.
I'd be terrified that if Jack met somebun that was willing to stand up to him it'd just be a blood bath, and to be honest I don't think any of the others here would anyway.
Maybe I should send him up to live with you Chloe :lol:

tigerbabe said:

Maybe I should send him up to live with you Chloe :lol:

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:lol: I'm sure Jacob would be up for teaching him a few manners!! :lol:

chloaster said:

:lol: I'm sure Jacob would be up for teaching him a few manners!! :lol:

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He could do with learning a few!