Behaviour

Hi,
I have had two rabbits for about a year now annabelle (unsterilized) and Boris (sterilized), they are great, always with each other cuddling and grooming.

About 3 weeks ago I got asked if I would take on another female as they couldnt keep her, now cotton is about 9 months I assume, as they said they got her from a pet store around 6 months ago.
I brought her home sat her cage next to my other one , all was going fine I would slowly let them start meeting, a little bit of chasing happened but nothing major but any way eventually they all seemed fine grooming n cuddling etc so I put them permanently all together in the one hutch, and it was fine they woukd groom cuddle etc was great, but now in this last week cotton (new) and annabelle are at each other chasing n fighting like rolling around, fur flying out etc so I have had to seperate, but I just dont understand whats happened, it was all fine and going well and now it just crazy, I would love some help or advice on maybe how or why this happened and what to do?

Any help would be amazing please

Heather

Sent from my GT-P3110 using Tapatalk

Both your Does need to be spayed before you have any hope of bonding. This is adviseable, anyway, as the risk of un-neutered females developing uterine cancer by the age of 5 is 80%.

Once hormones have settled, you need to bond in a completely neutral area, where no rabbit has been.

Hi Heather, I would assume it's hormones acting up. Neutering both females would be a good idea and then you can attempt to re-bond them once they've had time to heal. What size hutch are they in? If they haven't a great deal of space then that could be frustrating the girls, hence the fighting.

The other thing is, rabbits can fight to the death or inflict terrible injuries - so you need to keep them separate until after the spaying.

Yes they are seperated, and they both will be getting spayed soon as I am aware of the cancer?
This is their home and usualy when im home they have free run of the house and during the day on weekends out the back aswell , the use the cat flap and come and go, but bed time there locked in there home and when im not home aswell



Sent from my GT-P3110 using Tapatalk

They are my older two annabelle and boris

Sent from my GT-P3110 using Tapatalk

Rabbits tend to compete within the sexes so females compete with other females for best feeding spots and nesting areas and males compete with other males for territory and ladies. So, whilst a male-female pair will often get along great, two bunnies of the same sex are more likely to argue. Neutering helps because it gets rid of some of the hormones driving the competition.

You'll want to wait 4-6 weeks post spay, so the hormones can go down and then try them on neutral territory. Sometimes rabbits can hold a grudge so it's impossible to predict whether you'll be able to get them back together or not.

Oh ok I just feel terrible that two are together and the other one is by herself now I hope once spayed it will all settle down n they can get along

Sent from my HUAWEI Y330-U01 using Tapatalk