• Forum/Server Upgrade If you are reading this you have made it to the upgraded forum. Posts made on the old forum after 26th October 2023 have not been transfered. Everything else should be here. If you find any issues please let us know.

Referred aggression info

HoneyBear

Mama Doe
When to pick up Bear and Alice this morning, and the lady said Alice had been going for Bear when she went to feed them.
She said that it could be referred aggression due to the other rabbits around.

Can anybody give me any info on this? Does it mean they dont have a very good bond :(
She said she was just lunging towards him and chasing, it was nothing to nasty.

They have been absolutely fine since I got them home and have seen no signs of it whatsoever.
 
Nope nothing wrong with their bond if they are fine now in their own territory. This is a common behaviour with some rabbits in the presence/smell/sight of other rabbits. One of the pair feels threatened by another rabbit nearby but unable to attack the intruder they turn their aggression on to their partner.

It happens a lot. All it means is that you will need to be more careful when housing and boarding your rabbits if you intend to keep more than one pair of rabbits or board them. Sometimes a screen is sufficient and very often shared territory/exercise space will trigger a reaction. All buns are different and pairs too.

Had it with my two when I fostered a bun for a while. They never saw him but the aggression occurred between my well bonded pair just when smelling his scent on the lawn. :wave:

ETA Just bear in mind that it may not be referred aggression - sometimes a bond will get a bit jumpy just over new territory/new environment or if one bun is poorly and the other rejects them. As they seem OK now it was probably other rabbits or claiming new territory x
 
I don't have any massive info, just observations of my own bunnies, but one of my pairs, Bunny and Poppy suffer from referred aggression. With them it seems to be that another bunny in very close proximity will set them off (lunging at each other). I found this out by accident before I even knew anything about referred aggression and it scared me...a lot. I have another pair of my own, plus two foster bunnies, so there are always smells of other bunnies around and on me, and they are fine with that...it just seems to be if they can see another bunny very close by that they don't like it. The set-ups are arranged so that they are not too close to any other buns, and they are absolutely fine.

Bunny and Poppy have the closest bond ever, so I personally don't think it is related to an unstable bond.
 
honey is like this when she gets near anyother rabbits-she wounder charlie with a nasty bite but since implementing a way of keeping them out of sght outa mind they are best buds again:wave:
 
Gypsy and Storm love each other so much. But the one time I brought another bunny home they went crazy and fought like tigers :shock: it was scary! they couldn't beat up the other bunny so they turned on each other!

This was quite a few years ago now and Gypsy and Storm went back to being loved up buns :love: but for a while I thought that their bond was broken forever.
 
Back
Top