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My male and female neutered bonded pair have started fighting after two months!!

penandpat

New Kit
We have had penelope for 7 months and patrick for 3 months.Both are rescued penelope is a new zealand white and patrick a dwarf lop albino! They were getting on brilliantly until last week! They are both neutered. Penelope does most of the grooming and is always going to patrick for attention, he occasionally licks her and this makes her happy!
Last week we opened the cages as normal and 5 minutes later a huge fight started and fur was flying everywhere.
We seperated them for a week and just put them in the bathroom to reintroduce, they sat together for a while then we let them out in the bathroom on the floor for a while penelope was puttin her head out to be groomed and patrick was not really taking the bait but lying near her,think he was a bit frightened he is less aware of the bathroom than penelope! What should our next tactics be? I know they can like eachother so I don't want to give up on them! They both have proper little peronalities! But seeing them like this has upset me and my boyfriend! I even had a little cry before! Sad I know!
Please help if you can.
Xxx
 
Hi

You say "cages" does that mean they are separate at night? What space do they have as theirs and what is the space you let them out into?
 
They have a large cage each that they go into at night, and the run of most of my house when they are out and about.. Couple of rooms are off limit! They often went into eachothers.cgaes quite happily and even when they were having running time woud b quite happy to take themselves off for a play or lie down in their cages! We have heard swapping them over at night may work??,, xxx
 
They have a large cage each that they go into at night, and the run of most of my house when they are out and about.. Couple of rooms are off limit! They often went into eachothers.cgaes quite happily and even when they were having running time woud b quite happy to take themselves off for a play or lie down in their cages! We have heard swapping them over at night may work??,, xxx

It may be the putting them in separate cages which is doing it and shutting them away. By separating then putting back together they have to sort out their heirarchy and re-establish their territory each day.

If you let them sleep in the same space (after bonding of course) and ensure it's large enough then they should be ok. The absolute minimum space they should have is 6ft x 4ft but preferably a whole room.
 
You can't re-bond them in a bathroom (too small, too confined), take them to a neutral territory like the backyard, 20 to 30 min. per day, in a few weeks, they should re-bond
 
I agree that they need to be together all the time and not have separate sleeping areas.

What is the situation right now? Separate cages and separate exercise times?

If they are now split they may be more territorial about their own area, so swapping over cages, bowls etc may help. You can do either the 'long bonding' thing where you put them together for short periods at a time, or the more intense bonding where you put them in a small neutral area and watch them every minute until you are sure they are rebonded.

Most people favour the second method as it's less stressful for the rabbits, as otherwsie they are starting again every time you put them back together.

When our bonded pair fought, we split them up but swapped hutches, bowls etc. most days and then fully rebonded in a very small, neutral pen a few months later when I knew I had the time to supervise properly. It took 3 days of spraying with water, shouting 'No', clapping hands, frightening them with hoover noise, box on the washer, etc. At night I put two mesh panels between them - they were not separated but couldn't bite.

Now they are back to being happy bunnies and constantly groom each other.
 
You can't re-bond them in a bathroom (too small, too confined), take them to a neutral territory like the backyard, 20 to 30 min. per day, in a few weeks, they should re-bond

Actually I disagree. I like to bond my bunnies in a small area so that they have to interact. But I do think it's important that once they're bonded together they stay together at all times. Perhaps you could join the two cages together somehow? My two are inseparable. They had a little fight a few weeks after they were bonded but I put them in a small neutral space for 24 hours and made sure they were supervised. Once they'd all settled down I gave them more space. Good luck. :)
 
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