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Forum BONDING Territorial Female (that is spayed!)

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    • Deleted User
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        I have a bonded lop pair.  I have been trying to bond my rescue rabbit (female flemish lop mix) to the bonded lop pair for about seven months now (on and off).  

        The two females can get quite violent with each other.  The issue is that my female lop has become increasingly territorial.   I can’t bond all three of them together anymore because my female lop gets VERY violent with her bonded male.  She will not let him go anywhere near the flemish female. It honestly appears like insane jealously.

        I stopped the “face to face” meetings and went back to basics. I let the rabbits visit each other through a baby gate.  The flemish female plops down in front of the gate with her feet out.  At first, the female lop started peeing all over their room and ON the male lop.  Although gross, we could handle cleaning up the mess.  Then the female lop started to beat up her bonded male again. Anytime the male approached the gate to check out the flemish female, he got attacked and peed on. This has escalated to fur pulling, growling, and chasing. Its very one sided.

        I have decided bonded as a three will not work because my poor male lop is getting beat up during and after each session. (He has had blood drawn once…) I am now wondering if i should go back to just trying to bond the females?

        The flemish giant is not territorial but she is very timid and when the lop pounces or starts getting all crazy, she will bite out of fear (she can be aggressive when scared).  I have tried switching toys and blankets, litter boxes, the lop pees on anything the flemish touched. We switched living areas and spent a lot of time cleaning up pee (again all from the lop female).

        My boyfriend has suggested we give up on bonding and get a suitable male partner for the flemish so that she can bond with another rabbit.

        My apologies for the long message, i am wondering

        1) Should i try to bond the females alone? 

        2) Should we try getting a second male (after maybe some rabbit dates) and keep the couples separate?

        Thanks so much!


      • MoveDiagonally
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          I’m going to move this to the bonding section.


        • MoveDiagonally
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            Where are you doing your introductions? If it’s near or in their territory areas this could be a big part of the problem. It’s really common for bonded pairs to snipe at each other when they feel another bunny is intruding on their space. I would completely separate your bonded pair from your single rabbit. I would stop having the visit with each other and make sure the single bunny stays away from the bonded pairs habitat. Housing bunnies near each other and allowing visits with barriers is usually recommended but for some rabbits it increases aggression. It sounds like that may be the case for your bunnies.

            I would suggest taking a break from bonding. After keeping them separated for a week or more I would re-introduce them in a completely neutral area (bathrooms/bathtubs are popular) and see where it goes from there.

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        Forum BONDING Territorial Female (that is spayed!)