Aggressive cleaning?

[Ren]

Hi everyone,

I have two bunnies, a boy Reggie and a girl Poppy, both a year and a half old. They have been together since they were about 4 months old and have always been very snuggly with each other but Poppy is most definately the dominant one.

A few months ago we noticed that Poppy had started grooming Reggies ears. She will flip one over and start licking it, and she licks it really hard and tries to get right down into his ear. We took him to the vet because we thought he might have ear mites (they both had them earlier in the year) but the vet said it may be an infection, so we seperated them for a week in cages side by sided, gave Reg his ear drops, then put them back together, and she stopped licking his ears for a few days, but now she is doing it just as frequently as ever and he is also doing it her.

Is this a normal rabbit behaviour or should we be seperating them again? Even keeping them side by side they weren’t particularly happy until they were back together, but I am worried that they might be hurting each other, Reggie has scratches in his ears and we don’t know if its just from him claws or if its from Poppys continuous licking.

Can anyone help with this?

[tanlover14]

I wouldn’t separate them when one gets sick unless it’s absolutely necessary. Separating after you started the meds was probably pointless and stressful for them – your other bunny had already been exposed to the illness as it was. So I wouldn’t separate unless it’s absolutely necessary. One of my buns recently had a resp. infection (he’s bonded to four other bunnies) and he all of his bonded buns were completely fine and he was with them from beginning to end. Typically, once exposed they either catch it or are fine so you’d know quickly.

My buns groom each other like CRAZY. Grooming the ears is very normal behavior as it’s hard for the bunny to really groom inside his ears himself (my buns always get this area for each other). However, I would Reggie back to the vet to make sure his ears are okay. I would be more worried about him scratching them than Poppys continous licking causing problems. My buns have been known to lick spots bald but I’ve never seen any of them create scratches on the other from overgrooming.

[bunnluff]

My rabbits both just had ear mites also and were practically eating one anothers ears. But they always groom each other so this wasn’t unusual for me to see. They actually take turns licking each others eyes and ears.

[Author]

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