3 month old rabbits just started fighting today!!

Hi

I hope someone can help as I am very worried.

I bought two little mini lion lop girls at 9 weeks, they were born 25/09/2017 so only just turned 3 months.

This morning I heard a lot of noise, I thought they might just be binkying etc as they usually do but they were fighting each other, chasing eachother around the room with fluff everywhere, I have never seen this before and did not expect this to happen so early. Would this be hormonal behavior or is it just to find out who is dominant. I watched them for about half an hour after stopping the fighting, the orange bunny seemed to lower her head and the black one groomed her, so I thought they were friends again. but every so often the black one goes near the orange bunny and the orange bunny runs away like crazy. I'm really worried about splitting them up as I don't want to break any bond. Any advice on what this could be and how to deal with it?

Arent they just a little bit too young to be spayed yet? Also very worried about them being left on their own now.

Please help!!

Have either of them been injured?

My girls were neutered at 14 weeks and 16 weeks of age. Both perfectly healthy without any complications.

It may be best if your rabbit savvy vet won't neuter to separate them with a divide so they can still see/smell/interact but not injure then rebond 6 weeks after being spayed

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Are you sure they are girls? You will need to separate them if they fight again as they could both be injured. Their health is more important than their bond, as you can always try to re=bond them at a later date. I would check what sex they are.

That's what I thought too, you are sure those are girls? As I know it, with girls dominance behaviour and aggressions go through some stages (humping, evil eye, chasing, fur plucking) before escalating (in rare cases when no hierachy is established), with males it can go from peace to bloody deadly war from one day to the next.

Are those your first rabbits, or are you familiar with their ways?

Anyway, it's said baby bonds aren't real ones, they have to settle things anyway, with intact does in puberty - well, it can be hard to watch without intervening, and sometimes it doesn't work out (had to pull a doe from a mother/daughter/daugher trio because she got depressed with the much more dominant others around, but no real fighting). The only serious fights of does I witnessed were young but mature does which didn't live together and accidentially got out in the garden at the same time (both are 6 now, their temper smoothed out somewhat).
I don't have any experience with neutered rabbits, but when it looks like that they can't settle things or there is serious fighting (like continuing chasing although one seeks shelter out of sight, or grabbing each other and trying to rip the oponents belly open (yes, rabbits do that, but it's imho more a male thing) seperating them and rebond them after neutering sounds like a good idea.

Ah, be sure they have places to hide, boxes big enough to get out of sight with at least 2 doors (under pressure, they don't enter a dead end), also putting up their stuff so that there are forking raceways help reducing chasing and fur plucking.

They may remember who they fought, making later bonding more difficult, so seperating in time seems to be a good idea. But I have no first hand experience with bonding since all my pairs are mother/daughter.

Thank you all for your replies. They werent hurt after the fight thankgoodness. We checked them both this evening and it seems that they are both girls. So least thats better than having two males! I got home and they were both snuggling up together. Theyve had two little run ins since but nothing as serious. If it gets worse we may have to seperate them before we get them spayed.

Also these are our second pairing of bunnies. We never had any issues with the last two. They did a lot of humping lol but that was it and then we got them spayed but they were male and female which i believe is the preferable pair to have anyway. No chasing or fur pulling so this is new to us.

Chasing and fur pulling are very normal rabbit behaviours. They are hitting their teenage hormones and trying to work out who is top rabbit. I would separate them and have them spayed asap. Best of luck.