I barely post on here because I can usually find the answer to my questions via other people’s posts, but I haven’t been able to find anything relating to this question I’ve had for a couple of weeks.

Basically, I’ve been bonding Izzy and Spock and it started out really well and I now like to class them as almost fully bonded. The reason they’re not fully bonded is because I haven’t got them living together yet as I’ve been ill so I’m waiting till I’m feeling okay again to move onto this step. They have been in each other’s houses though. Izzy hated Spock in her cage, kept lunging at him, grunting at him and trying to nip him, but when they were both in Spock’s 2 story hutch, they were perfectly fine. Spock didn’t seem to care and Izzy seemed quite happy. I think it’s because Izzy gets territorial about her cage, I mean I can’t even put my hand in to pet her without her lunging and grunting at me. And feeding her is worse, I have to hold her head gently so I can put her food in without my hand being maimed.

Anyway, like I said I class them as almost fully bonded because they play with each other, race each other up and down the stairs, Izzy cleans Spock (but he never reciprocates because he’s rude like that) and finally, after waiting for this to happen for sooooo long, they flopped together and had a good snuggle!

But lately they’ve been giving each other a few nips. It started out light, sort of a warning and they seemed to make up after with little nose bumps and stuff, but then it started getting worse. There’s no bleeding, no fur pulling, no boxing, just nipping. But usually they stop after about 2 nips, yet now it’s getting to the point where they’ll just go back and forth until I separate them. They refuse to work it out on their own so I have to step it and pet them at the same time and cuddle them and then they’re okay again.

The thing is, I think it’s Spock that’s starting this whole nipping them. He practically forces Izzy to clean him by pushing his head under her chin. And if she refuses, he shoves her because he is a lot bigger than her (him a French Lop, her a Mini Lop). Izzy stands up for herself though, she’s a real tough one who doesn’t take any crap from Spock, which is good because he can be really annoying at times. And I think that’s what’s happening, he’s annoying her and she’s telling him off for it. At first, he never did anything back to her, she’d nip him, he’d move away and then go and bump noses with her and they’d make up. But then something pretty bad happened. No bleeding or anything, nothing serious, but bad. Spock was following Izzy around, not chasing, just following because he wanted to cuddle but Izzy didn’t. Every time he got close, he’d push his head into her but then she’d move away. After the fifth time of doing this, Izzy turned around and nipped him on the head lightly as if to say “back off”. But Spock took this badly and nipped her back, and then went to nip her AGAIN but Izzy got there first and nipped him right under the chin!

Spock FREAKED OUT, started frantically cleaning himself under his chin, wouldn’t come near me at all, had a horrible worried look in his eyes and just genuinely looked frightened. Obviously I told Izzy off, it was my first instinct because Spock is my first bunny and even though I love Izzy, she will not be let off when she hurts him. Spock finally let me pet him and cuddle him, he calmed down and I put Izzy back in her cage and Spock back in his hutch, but he still seemed quite shook up. I was really scared and angry because they shouldn’t be doing this!

After talking to my mother about it, she suggested that maybe it’s because Spock’s a bit older and Izzy is still young (she’s 10 month now and Spock’s 1 year old, 2 in October), and I thought that could be it. Maybe Izzy is still too young to grasp Spock’s clingy-ness, because he is very clingy. He loves his attention and loves to be pet and snuggled, even when I’m not giving him his attention he’ll come up to me, nip my lower back and scrabble my legs/stomach/back until I give him attention. So if he does that to me, then he’s gonna do that to Izzy when she can’t be bothered right?

I never meant for this post to be so long but I wanted to make sure everyone knew the details because it’s not just a simple nip here nip there, it’s starting to get to the point where they do it every time they’re out together (unless they’re in the garden, they get too distracted by all the lovely grass to even think of cuddling and stuff). The reason I’m posting this though is because I wanted advice or just other people’s opinions on this. Have you ever had 2 bonded bunnies nip each other? This whole situation is making me want to delay moving them in together until Izzy turns 1 because if this is happening outside the hutch, if Spock is annoying Izzy too much when they’re not living together, god knows what will happen if they’re in the same hutch! I don’t know, I would just like some advice or opinions or anything really to sort of make this whole problem make more sense and maybe find a way to try and fix it.

Any help would be appreciated.