Hi there, welcome!

How long ago was the face-biting incident? After a serious injury like that bonding can be harder, but not impossible. In those cases, it’s actually recommended to give the rabbits a longer cooling-off period where they are not interacting at all (somewhere around 3-6 weeks minimum, depending on the severity of the injury). Then you would resume with pre-bonding side swaps. That said, they aren’t instantly attacking each other in bonding sessions so things may not be too bad.

So, in very tough bonds where the buns don’t like to be petted, it has worked for me to start with super short sessions. Definitely try to end the date before there is a fight. Larger spaces work well for this, because the buns will explore the face first and have a few minutes before they find each other. I like to set a timer for even as short as 30 seconds or a minute. Try to prevent fighting, but if they do start to scuffle break them up but wait for them to calm down before ending the date (ignoring each other is fine).

Car rides may be helpful as well. The way I do it when I’m not sure if they will fight is to get a big plastic tote (nothing on the bottom so it’s slippery) and have someone else drive. Have the car running with your driver ready. Pop both buns in the bin and go straight to the car. Have some leather gloves on and sit in the back seat with them and monitor. Drive around for 10 min or so and stop any scuffling. Then return them to their pens when you get home. If that does well then I would repeat that a few days in a row. Then you can do things like start with a car ride and then spend a couple minutes in the neutral bonding area. If you are bonding at someone else’s house this works great because they can ride to and from the bonding session together in the bin.

If they immediately fight in the car, then I think you should do a long cooling-off period to help them forget each other and start fresh.

When they approach each other to request grooms, try petting them on the head when they go nose to nose. Even with buns that don’t like pets, this will still sometimes make them think the other rabbit is grooming them if you time it right. If not, then it breaks up the interaction so it doesnt escalate.

And basically to end on a neutral or a good note, you should keep them together  but wait until they are not actively trying to nip at each other or chasing. Having a larger space to work in can help with this because they have room to move apart from each other. The idea is that if you break up the session every time they fight or nip, they learn that nipping/fighting makes that “other rabbit” go away and reinforces the behavior. Better to start with short sessions rather than push it too far and be forced to end on a bad note.

For reference, here are behaviors that are OK and those that should be stopped right away. If you know a behavior on the OK list always leads to a fight, then stop it, especially in these early sessions.

Generally OK:

-nipping

-mounting (if face mounting happens, spin the mounting rabbit around so they are in the correct orientation). If the rabbit being mounted tries to get away, prevent the mounter from chasing

-grunting

-thumping

-following with ears forward, short and slow chases (1-3 seconds)

-grooming requests

Behaviors to stop or prevent:

-hard biting (lots of fur yanked)

-boxing

-circling

-fast chasing (ears pinned back, tail up)

-fighting (work very hard to prevent this, but if a fight breaks out be sure to stop it right away).

That’s great the car ride went well! I would repeat that at least a couple more days in a row!

There are a couple of ideas behind why it works. One is that rabbit are social by nature due to fear… so providing a slightly stressful environment helps them realize “hey the other rabbit isn’t so bad” and seek them out for shelter. The other idea is that when they are distracted by the car ride, they are less concerned with the other bun so they don’t attack them, so they start to learn the other bun is not a threat. It is not humane to do extreme stressing with rabbit bonding, but I feel OK with car rides since rabbits have to go on car rides regularly anyway, like for a vet visit. And it’s not something you would do for the entire time bonding, rather as a tool to get past serious aggression or other tough spots. They won’t set up their hierarchy in a car ride, but they can start to learn that the other rabbit is not a threat, so they can learn to sort out dominance without it breaking out into a fight. Of course keep an eye on your rabbits’ stress level. If either rabbit starts eating less or takes a long time to behave normally after a session, then take a day off and ease up a bit. It’s totally fine to take a day off here and there as needed.

If they continue to try to fight in a session, yes get your hands on them and prevent the fighting. I usually will pin the rabbits down when this happens. You can also stick a dust pan between them (or both). If they seem calm while pinned down, pet them. Eventually they will give up and go to their opposite corners.

In early stages I think it’s better to intervene too much or too soon than too late. It’s very easy for things to escalate to a bad fight when you are still learning to read their behaviors, so for now don’t worry about having your hands on them a lot! As you get a better read on them you can intervene less and less.

Aww bummer, I’m sorry! It’s really stressful when they go right for the face 🙁

I think a long break with full separation is the best plan at this point, I think two different rooms would be enough. It’s totally your call as to whether you want to try again or just call it quits. I would keep them apart for at least 4 weeks or more. There isn’t really a hard rule on this, but my sense is the longer the better. Rabbits hold grudges unfortunately.

Some bunnies are perfectly happy as neighbors but that doesn’t mean they will get along face to face. Also laying side by side can sometimes mean they are actually just keeping a very close eye on the other rabbit… and stuffing faces through the bars could go either way (asking for grooms, trying to mount, etc.).

It’s often hard to know what goes on in those bunny brains, but in order for rabbits to bond, one eventually needs to submit to the other. But to do that, they need to trust that the other rabbit is not going to attack them. When there has been an injury, it’s harder to get them to that point of trust. Females in general are the hardest to bond because they are more territorial. So I think with your two the goals should be to help them forget their grudges so you can rebuild the trust. Working with them in a completely unfamiliar territory (such as a friend’s house) may also be very helpful!

Though seemingly small, rabbits do have a clear understanding that a pen wall is a firm delineation of territory, space, and also safety, so being really close with friendly interactions across bars can make sense, while fighting when the bars aren’t there also makes sense. I actually have two rabbits who live separated and are fine across bars.