advise on agressive bunny behavior please

[Christine]

Hi, I’m new to this forum. I’m coming here because I don’t know what to do about my female bunny. I have 3 bucks and 1 doe. All spayed and neutered. When we got the girl about 6 months ago and added her to the herd, she was always humping and was the dominate rabbit. She was unfriendly with us and the other rabbits. We got her spayed though figuring that would change how unfriendly she is. She’s been spayed for about 4 months now and she is still horribly mean to the other rabbits. She is constantly biting them and ripping out hair, she growls at them and humps them all the time. Anytime the other bunnies binky she chases them down and rips out their fur. She used to bite and draw blood from us, but fortunately she doesn’t do that anymore. She still doesn’t really want anything to do with us though, unless we have food.

All of our bunnies have a ton of running free time, they have a huge two story cage, and they have tubes, toys and anything you can think of to play with when it is their roaming time. The three bucks are the sweetest things ever, one just loves sitting on your lap and being groomed, if you pet any of the other bunnies he has to immediately come over and lay his head down to be groomed too. One of the others is always grooming us and will even give you lip kisses. We just don’t understand what is going on because all if the other bunnies are the sweetest things you can imagine. I feel sorry for the other bunnies because since we got her they don’t binky as much cause they’re scared of getting bit. Plus all the litter box training has gone out the window since we got her too. I understand she wants to be the dominant one, but none of the other buns fight back so I don’t understand why she is so cruel about it.

As a side note, since she is so food driven we give her treats and pet her while she is fed to make her more friendly with us but that doesn’t work. My main concern is that she is mean to the other bunnies. I would like her to be friendly to us, but I’m not holding out much hope at this point. All of our bunnies are from the same breeder so it’s not like she was treated any differently growing up that would make her mean.

Any advise is greatly appreciated!

[Kokaneeandkahlua]

is there any chance she can have her own area-at least for a few months? Aggression is often due to feeling scared, threatened etc-I wonder if she’s frightened with three established bonded rabbits, especially as she was not spayed when introduced. I would separate, at least for a few months then try bonding her to -maybe the boss of your three guys. IF that goes well she could meet one then the other, as a friend of one so she’ll feel secure. But as is, I would give her time and space if possible!

[LBJ10]

A break sounds like a good idea and I like KK’s idea of trying to establish individual bonds once things have calmed down a little.

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