Food Aggression between two rabbits

[LionheadLuver]

Hi

I have a pair of rabbits who have been bonded for 9 months. Molly used to live with her sister until she sadly passed away. Gerry is a rescue rabbit and they bonded straight away.

Gerry used to be very placid which seemed to keep Molly calm. Molly's sister, Milly used to chase her away from food so we had to feed her separately and we wondered if their bond was that stable. Since she got bullied by her sister around food, Molly is very protective around food and lunges and boxes at hands or anything near her food, including Gerry. I did try to stop her boxing Gerry.

Gerry, being the placid rabbit he was, put up with this for months, however he seems to have had enough, and now lunges and chases Molly around, which is exactly what Milly used to do to her.

Just to note, I do separate them to feed them their pellets, but the chasing and lunging starts before I can even get the door open. I once put my hand between them to stop them, and Gerry did have his mouth open. He does sometimes get tufts of Molly's fur.

When they're not around pellets, they do seem happy together, washing each other, lying together. I don't know how to change my routine to stop them, as they start this behaviour before I can even open the door to their cage.

What can I do about this? Is it fair to keep them together?

 

[tonibun]

There's always usually a mad chase when you're putting the food in. I pop it in quickly and they start to eat it and stop the chasing. Why do you separate them, I would have thought that would stress them out moreso. Perhaps you could hide it in some hay and put it all in together.

 

[LionheadLuver]

There's always usually a mad chase when you're putting the food in. I pop it in quickly and they start to eat it and stop the chasing. Why do you separate them, I would have thought that would stress them out moreso. Perhaps you could hide it in some hay and put it all in together.

Thanks. I separate them so that mostly Molly can eat in peace because chasing will also occur when the food is down.

 

[Tamsin]

Trawl back a bit in the behaviour topics, there was someone recently with a similar problem but I can't remember the name It had lots of idea to help.

What you need is to break your routine so the trigger for the aggression to start never happens. So if it's you walking in the room, you need to walk in and out the room over and over again without bringing food. If it's seeing the container, swap containers, change storage places etc.

If they are both healthy bunnies then cutting out pellets completely for a couple of weeks may break the cycle if that's what the aggression is over. Then gradually reintroduce but in toys or scatter feeding - no bowls.

 

[MummyBunnyEm]

I have this issue with my buns. I seperate them sometimes during a morning feed if I'm cutting Chloes hair as I've got scissors so it's dangerous if they are running about boxing each other. Most days Chloe pulls out a chunk of fur from Barney's cheek. A few weeks ago she caught his nose with her claw causing him to have a nose bleed. It's all because Barney seems to get very excited at meal times. They are great together otherwise.