Female rabbit biting and ripping out fur of other female! Help!

Hi there

Thanks to everyone for the warm welcome! ^_^

As you may know depending on whether you've read my intro, I have two female bunnies named Luna and Jupiter at about 12 weeks. They have not been neutered (this may be something to do with this)

Anyway, they were in their run, and running about. They have got on fine ever since i got them, as they were in the shop together. They clean eachother too.

They started running very quickly around the run, and although I didn't see this, my family said that Jupiter (black shorthair) attacked Luna (dwarf lion cross) and bit her, causing some of her fur to come out. By the time time I rushed outside, Luna was cowering in the corner and Jupiter was trying to chase her. I had help to lift Jupiter out of the run and put her back in the hutch. Sat in with Luna and she came up to cuddle me and looked a bit scared. I saw no massive damage to her, but Jupiter had bitten her back and caused some fur to come out.

This really upset me as I thought they got on fine is this a sign of bunny puberty?! Or being territorial? Shall I get them both sprayed asap? Or maybe jupiter got too excited? I thought 12 weeks was to early to get sprayed but I'm unsure really.

Any help would be much needed! I think I'm going to seperate them in the hutch tonight, as there are two floors. I don't want this to happen again, I feel sorry for poor Luna

I think around now will be when hormones start taking effect, but I know that usually only very confident vets will spay before 6 months, as it is a harder operation than for the males. So I'm not sure what others will say regarding that.

One of my buns Bilbo can be a bit boisterous when he wants to play chase, but that's all it is. It's hard to tell when you haven't seen it yourself unfortunately. Females are definitely more temperamental from what I've heard but I don't really know what to advise right now, sorry.

I would definitely house them separately from now on, you will probably need another hutch and run so they have enough space. As said above, most vets won't spay until 6 months, then it will be another 6 weeks or so while the hormones die down enough to attempt rebonding them. But be warned, it can be very difficult to bond 2 female rabbits, it's usually much easier with a male and female x

ripminnie said:

it can be very difficult to bond 2 female rabbits, it's usually much easier with a male and female x

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i second this! especially as a rabbit bonder novice myself!

my doe was neutered at 16 weeks and is a tiny mini lop, also agree they should be split asap or they may never get on again if they have a massive falling out.

jwr said:

my doe was neutered at 16 weeks and is a tiny mini lop, also agree they should be split asap or they may never get on again if they have a massive falling out.

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Thanks for the advice!

It's quite hard to section them off and I only have one hutch. They have been together since they were very small and have got on ever since, I think Jupiter may have just got too excited.

Before reading all of this, I put them together carefully to see what Jupiter would do and she went up to Luna and started grooming her and licking near where she bit her. Then she let Luna have her carrot! Then cuddled up together in a corner. I'm not quite sure what's going on really! Haha.

Ill seperate them as much as I can, as I don't want this happening again. But I'm keeping a close eye on them.

Even when neutered rabbits will need to sort out whoose boss and there will be a bit of fur pulling but getting them neuted will help

This happened to us too - in fact it's how I discovered RU!

Truffle and Fudge are sisters - we brought them home together at 8 weeks and kept them for 4 weeks with no trouble. At 12 weeks they had an almighty scrap in the early hours of the morning which woke us up - I still remember them now tumbling around the cage together, fur flying everywhere.

At the time they were in a Nero 4, which is about 4ft x 2 ft - it was the biggest available in the shop and we had no idea it wasn't big enough. We've learned a lot since then!

I was advised that they were becoming hormonal and probably didn't have enough space. We set up a puppy pen next to the Nero 4, and kept one inside the cage and the other in the pen, and swapped them every day for a few days. That gave us enough time to work out a bigger space for them - we were able to arrange the puppy pen so that it was a 6ft x 4 ft space, with the cage (open) inside it. We were lucky enough to be able to keep them together in that setup with no further issues until they were spayed (they were heavily supervised initially).

Ours are house bunnies, so it was possibly easier to play with the space. I have no idea if you could arrange something similar, or even if it would work for you girlies - there's certainly no guarantee.

Alternatively if you do split them temporarily and don't have a second hutch/run, could you bring one indoors? I'm not sure when the latest is that they could go back out though before winter - hopefully someone else can advise....

My two had a fur pulling scuffle earlier (I posted about it in this section) they are a male/female pairing but I have decided it was just a minor incident and to let it slide. I would just leave them together but keep a close eye on them to see if the fighting continues. Fingers crossed it won't!