We have new house rabbits :-) couple of behaviour questions (sorry this is long)

[stampz]

Good morning all,

Over the weekend my girlfriend and I became the proud parents of two lovely ladies from a rescue centre (Lola and Mimi).

The bunnies are not yet spayed, but have been living together in the rescue already bonded for some months. However since bringing them home on Saturday we have started to notice some behaviour which is concerning us (we have researched and no a lot of this is normal, but just want clarication)

The first day they arrived home, both bunnies were fine, they explored their hutch and indoor run, and then later in the evening we allowed them out with us for a while to get used to more of the house, all was good, they were lying on the rug in the living room, legs stretched out looking very content.

However yesterday they started to act a little differently, Mimi started nipping and trying to mount Lola in the run (but not the hutch) and chasing her in the hutch. Also she was taking the odd clump of fur from her.

The when we let them into the living room again, Mimi was constantly mounting Lola, both from behind and on her head, and still nipping her and taking a lot more fur out. We have read that this is all normal and should stop with spayding, but we still feel a little wary about letting them carry on.

The lady in the rescue told us it was Lola who was the dominant one and not Mimi, so could this be Mimi trying to get herself to be more dominant in the new enviroment?

We are planning to get them both spayed as soon as we can, but until then, should we let this behaviour carry on until it subsides? Obviously we are not home all day, so they may well be doing it now and we cant split them up, which leads me to think we should do the same in the evenings...

Sorry for the long post, I'm just a little concerned.

Thanks

 

[Emm-Jane76]

Hi there - how old are the buns? Some mounting and fur pulling is absolutely normal. Just so long the other bun is not distressed or proper biting isn't occurring. If I was out for long periods of time I would probably put them in seperate cages but have it so they can still see each other. If the mounting and fur pulling is taken too far and you're not in then it isn't good.

I am not an expert but I noticed nobody had replied as yet. Hopefully, someone more experienced will be along soon. But if this was my predicament that's what I would do. When will they be ready for speying?

 

[stampz]

They are one and half now, so should be abled to be speyed already, it's just the lady at the rescure hadnt had them done, and said we didnt need to worry about it.

However for their own health we want to get them done.

 

[Emm-Jane76]

Ok so if you get them done asap it will definitely help in their behaviour. Let us know how you get on but in the meantime, if you're not in, I would keep them seperate but so they can still see each other. It's not ideal but it's just not worth the risk in my eyes.

Hope this helps!

 

[SarahP]

I'm no expert either, but had a similar experience to you. The 2 bunnies I used to have were unspayed sisters of approx 18 months old when I took them on. They reacted the same as your buns to the change in environment - a new territory means they need to re-establish who is the dominant bun (which can result in a reversal of roles). As long as there is no real violence/blood etc, you should be able to let this ride out and I don't think it will last long.

I had them spayed 2 months after I got them and, whilst it did remove some of the territorial behaviour (one of the bunnies used to growl and lunch at us from the safety of her hutch), the dominance mounting thing still happened post-spays (but only as a reaction to any change - eg. if they had been split up due to illness, when they stayed somewhere different whilst I was on holiday, etc)..