Newly bonded pair fighting

Started bonding my neutered male and female on Saturday afternoon, after initial fighting, chasing etc they settled well. I separated them overnight and reintroduced them Sunday morning.

They were great together, eating, grooming each other, laying down together. So they stayed together.

However this morning they have started fighting (rolling on the floor), I break them up but they keep going back to fighting. Nothing has changed in their enclosure.
I have just taken them for a ride in the car and they are sitting in different litter trays eating.

Any ideas of what to do? Unfortunately I can't watch them continuously now the weekend has gone.

Sorry to hear your bunnies have had a fight. Are they in neutral territory and how long have they been with you and neutered?

Thanks for replying......getting very stressful here!
Yes it is neutral territory.
I have had the male for 18 months and he was neutered over a year ago.
I rehomed the female 3 months ago and was told she was neutered, my vet check she was female.
They are still fighting when they get close.
Should I separate them overnight?

Good luck, I don't know what to suggest, but good luck with them. I split mine with a sweeping brush and sprayed water at the more dominant rabbit to stop chasing. Sorry I can't be much help


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Castor said:

Should I separate them overnight?

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As you unable to be with them 24 hours a day, I would suggest that they are put back in their individual cages and you try the slow bonding technique until you are able to spend more time watching them
Good luck, they don't make it easy do they

I have sadly separated them.
The fighting got worse, both lying on their side trying the kick the other.
Not sure how easy it will be to do slow bonding as they both have large outdoor hutches/runs which I can't move next to each other.
Can I use the same space for rebonding them or does it have to be another neutral space?

Castor said:

Can I use the same space for rebonding them or does it have to be another neutral space?

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I would clean the current neutral space and try again

That's good.
I am using my conservatory because it can be shut off from the rest of the house and kept at outside temperatures.

Has your female been in the Conservatory before?

No she hadn't.
Everything in there was new.

Oh dear, what a shame after such a promising start Sadly it's not that uncommon after a couple of days for a bond to suddenly turn - often the submissive rabbit finds its feet and attempts to gain a bit of dominance, and if neither rabbit will back down it can escalate very quickly if there's not someone on hand to intervene at the time. Nothing you can do about the past now though.

Personally after such a serious falling out I would give them a good few weeks time out before trying again, and would do it slowly so that you can supervise when you're there. I'd been slow bonding Delilah and Pablo for about 5 or 6 weeks just by starting with half an hour and building the time up slowly, until I finally left them together over Christmas. It does take longer of course but it's probably going to be more practical for you if you can only watch them at the weekend. It does go backwards a bit between sessions but needn't go right back to square one if you get them to meet regularly. By the sounds of it you might have to be very hands on and ideally get someone else to come and help when you next try it, as they will probably go straight into attack mode before the other bun attacks them. They'll need calming and preventing from attacking until they learn that the other rabbit isn't out to get them (hopefully).

Best of luck, it must have been so upsetting when you just want them to be happy together.

Thanks Santa for your kind words. I am really upset by this failure, they appeared to be so happy for the first couple of days, almost inseparable.

Slow bonding sounds like the way to proceed.
Should they be kept side by side between the actual bonding sessions?