These guys were apperently bonded when they were given to me. Not neutered at the time. They were shy in the day but rowdy at night. Didn’t take long to realize they were fighting over a dominence issue, as there was lots of mounting, chasing and nipping. Perhaps the move broke the bond, maybe they were never properly bonded to begin with, I’ll never know. There was not room enough in my small room for separate bunnies, so I had to find a home for one of them quickly. I gave the shyer—black bunny—to a close friend, with a list of DO’s and DONT’s and sample bags of hay and pellets. I asked about him often, and it became apparent that he was not getting proper care. Then she moved him to her mothers house who has a lose dog in the house. We fought over him for a while, but I eventually got him back when they adopted 2 more dogs. Let’s just say we are no longer friends.

Before we gave him away he was just very shy, and the lesser dominant of the two. We got him back with new aggression. Stomping and growing if you even looked in his direction. He scared me. We struggled with the decision of what to do with him. But decided the poor thing had moved around enough and that he became that way because he felt he had to. Our small room became even smaller in order to keep the rabbits separate. And it took months of very slow progress to get him to trust us again. I don’t know if he’ll ever really forget his time away from us, but he’s more like his old self now. Only he’s the more dominant of the two now.

We neutered them both, and took all appropriate bonding steps, and all went pretty well except that no one will mount and finally establish who the boss bunny is. They play nice downstairs where the territory is neutral, lots of laying together, eating together, grooming each other, but only for so many hours. Then someone, usually the black one, will start a hair pulling fight. There’s no putting them together upstairs, where it’s their territories, a fight breaks out immediately.

I don’t know what else to do. I know they love each other and want to be together but they can’t seem to decide on who will be the dominant bunny. I know it’s probably the black one, but he doesn’t try mounting the other. I’d love to hear your advice.