Slightly odd problem: bun over-grooming the inside of her new friend's ears

Hi there,

I successfully bonded my two house-rabbits (a male and a female lionhead, both neutered/spayed) about a month ago. They are getting on perfectly, but my lady bun only cleans right down inside of the boy rabbit's ears. They are starting to get sore where she keeps on licking them, and although I can stop her when I'm watching, I'm obviously not on 'ear watch' the whole time!

The male rabbit doesn't particularly try to get away, and he was bossing her around during the bonding (he doesn't groom her at all), but he has come from a very sad situation and was extremely lonely, so I think he is accepting whatever form of affection he is offered from his new friend! I don't think that this is happening out of boredom, as she often pauses from racing around/destroying cardboard boxes etc. when he hops up and asks to be groomed: then she plonks her paw on his head and shoves her nose down his ear to give it a good old lick!!

Any thoughts on how I can re-direct this behaviour would be most welcome....

Is there any chance that there is a problem with his ear? This is just a thought. Sometimes animals will pick up on a medical problems before humans and lick the area trying to fix it.

Hmm, that's an interesting thought, but, I don't think so: the small sore patches have only come as a result of her licking.

In fact, I suspected that there was almost the opposite problem: he has chronic eye problems which means they water and his face gets wet and the fur a little tangled so I thought she might be trying to show affection without cleaning the dirtier bits! (Obviously I wash and dry his face about every other day: sadly he has had x-rays, a dental, a tear duct flush and several courses of eye drops to no avail),

She was a rescue bun and already without her mum and siblings at 4 weeks old so I don't think she has many bunny social skills.......

I know it sounds a bit daft ..... but as she was taken from her mum at 4 weeks, do you think she gets some sort of 'comfort' from doing this?

Thanks for that.

It could well be - she is very obsessive about licking things! I think I just have to accept that both of my buns are a bit 'odd'