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Food Aggression?

Hi,

I have 2 neutered and bonded Netherland Dwarves who have never fought and get along really well.

They eat their veggies in the morning and pellets in the evening with no issues.

We put aside part of their daily pellet portion and use it for handfeeding and scattering throughout the day. Whatever is left we use for 'bunny time' where we get to floor level and have human - rabbit bonding time.

The issue is that Joey has been getting more aggressive when it comes to 'bunny time'. He grunts and runs about a lot as though he's chasing Sophie away. He also lunges quite a bit which make me worry he might accidentally scratch Sophie's eye!

As mentioned earlier there isn't this issue at breakfast or dinner, just when we're on the floor handfeeding. We're starting to think that as Joey is more affectionate with us than Sophie, he's jealous of Sophie also getting attention? Is this something that can happen?

Should we stop 'bunny time'? I don't really want to as it's a lovely way to bond and spend time with the rabbits but I'm more concerned Joey might accidently hurt Sophie.

Any thoughts/advice would be appreciated!
 
During Bunny Time do you always direct your attention to Joey first and appear to make more of a fuss of him. It sounds as though he is top Rabbit and humans need to respect that. If you try to comfort Sophie or focus on her too much Joey will keep feeling the need to assert his superiority by chasing her away.
 
During Bunny Time do you always direct your attention to Joey first and appear to make more of a fuss of him. It sounds as though he is top Rabbit and humans need to respect that. If you try to comfort Sophie or focus on her too much Joey will keep feeling the need to assert his superiority by chasing her away.

I agree with this. The dominant Rabbit must get most of the attention.
 
During Bunny Time do you always direct your attention to Joey first and appear to make more of a fuss of him. It sounds as though he is top Rabbit and humans need to respect that. If you try to comfort Sophie or focus on her too much Joey will keep feeling the need to assert his superiority by chasing her away.

I had always assumed Sophie was the dominant bun as she did most of the humping during bonding, requests grooming the most and tends to eat first at breakfast and dinner.

This does seem to be a bit reversed whenever we handfeed throughout the day and at 'bunny time' Joey always accepts his snack first and Sophie cautiously approaches afterwards.

At bunny time Joey leaves us no choice but to fuss and feed him first as he jumps on you straight away, getting as far up your chest as possible! Sophie tends to stay back and waits patiently.

Ironically we started bunny time to bond with Sophie when they lived separately as she wasn't as comfortable around us. Now they live together Joey seems to have taken over the situation a bit 😅
 
Ah! Rabbits are complex!

They certainly are. Maybe Sophie is top bunny but because she is cautious of humans and hangs back Joey has seen her weakness and takes the opportunity to become top human bunny????:lol::love: If he can't make her give him all the grooming and love attention he can with you/humans.
 
All 3 of my bucks chase their does around when it is feeding time. They soon settle and eat happily together!
 
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