It’s not essential for him to groom her back – does this seem to be a problem between the two? Is she demanding grooms and he’s just not doing it? Or doesn’t she mind? If she doesn’t mind, then there’s really not an issue there.

What exactly happens when he tries to hump her? Does she run and hide? Or does it escalate into fighting? They really sound like they are doing well for only having been bonding for a week – I don’t think you’re really “stuck” as it hasn’t been very long! I only wonder what happens when he humps because taking him off her every time may be whats making it difficult for them to establish a pecking order.

At some point they NEED to establish their pecking order so they can fully bond so you WANT them to have these dominance battles as long as they aren’t breaking out in fights. If so, then stress them out a little and get them to become closer to help make the dominance battles less aggressive when they do happen.

Absolutely. You do need to let some things happen otherwise they won’t move past that point.

If they’re locking teeth and spinning fast in a circle, you’ll need to break it up. But if its a bit of growling, nipping or pulling fur from the butt, this won’t hurt them.

Where are you doing the bonding sessions with them?

Not sure if this will help, but I let them do a lot of beginning bonding in a box. I set them in there for long periods of time and whenever they would start getting rowdy to the point of being VERY aggressive, I would shake the box and scare them. Which would immediately stop since they’d be freaked out. It helped I think because Simba always saw me as his “rescuer” and knew I would always come to his rescue to “save” him from the other bunnies. Which you don’t really want because they begin to expect it and it does nothing for helping to establish their order together. I’ve really learned that you want to keep yourself OUT of the bonding process as much as possible. It always made bonding mine go by a lot faster as they realized they HAD to figure it out. And they did. You should only be there to break up problems that are going to escalate into something harmful to either bunnies.

Yeah, I’m never sure why people think that grooming equates bonded or bonding – it is not necessarily so. I’ve had bonded pairs that never groom – bonding is a matter of trust and the rabbits feeling comfortable around each other and that doesn’t necessarily mean grooming so you don’t need to force that.