Fighting?

We've had Cotton (female) and Fidget (male) since they were about 8 weeks old. They've always been together until we found out Fidget was a boy about 2 months ago when we separated them.

They have still lived in the same two storey indoor cage since then but with the hole that leads to the top storey blocked off so they can't get to each other. Fidget was castrated two weeks ago.

They've still had (supervised) runs and play time together and there's never been a problem (although he has tried to mount her on occasion and we've pulled them apart).

Today Cotton somehow managed to get up to the top cage and my partner went running in to their room as he said there was loads of noise coming from there. He said that they were fighting. Cotton was trying to run away and was very scared and there was fur everywhere. He said he literally had to drag them apart and they were biting each others' backs and bums!

I don't know what they were doing as I didn't see it but does this sound like they were fighting? Neither is injured and they haven't gone for each other when they were out running. Is it fighting or did perhaps Fidget try to mount her and she didn't like it?

Any suggestions would be great. Thanks all

You need to keep them completely separate. It takes only a couple of seconds for him to make her pregnant, and he can still do this until 6-8 weeks after his neuter.

I would suggest it's important to find a more secure way of keeping them separate in their hutches too, and finding ways to give them separate run time.

Often bunny injuries don't show up until they have started to harden/scabbed, so you will need to keep checking them (blowing in the fur can be a good way) for the next few days. It's unusual for no injuries to occur.

Personally, I would suggest keeping them totally separate until 6-8 weeks after she has been spayed and then rebonding them using the proper bonding methods.

I think really this happened because she got into his territory, and he didn't like that, and maybe her hormones developing.

Thank you for your quick reply.

It's just so strange as they have got into each others cages before and just laid down together. They have spent a lot of time together and never had a fight.

It's quite upsetting as they've got on so well all the time we've had them and then this today. I can't afford to have Cotton neutered yet as it's very expensive and was hoping that it would be ok with Fidget done until at least after Xmas. We were told to keep them apart until 4 weeks after his operation which is what we were planning to do.

I'll keep checking them for injuries. I do wonder if maybe he was sleeping and was startled by Cotton getting up into his cage. My partner said that they must have started fighting almost immediately as he ran in there as soon as he heard the noise and Cotton couldn't have got in there without making a racket so she had obviously only just got in there.

Will they be able to bond while the girl isn't spayed or will she need doing before we can put them back together? I'm thinking that must be the reason they're not getting on all of a sudden as the only thing that's changed is Fidget being neutered. I just can't afford to have her done until after xmas really