Badly bitten!

[Jen7751]

Hi there,

My partner and I have had our bunny since she was a baby, she is now 6 months old.  We had her spayed two weeks ago and the past few days my partner and I have been bitten badly (both bruised and he was bitten to the bone!) for seemingly no reason.  When my partner got bitten he was putting her food into her bowl and she lunged and bit, she has lunged at me in a desperate attempt to get to her food but has always missed!

The last two nights though I’ve been petting her, she’s been ‘purring’ away and licking me as she always does.  But then she will randomly bite my ankles and I’ve tried the high pitch screaming and then putting her back in her cage but it has no effect.  Before she was spayed her bites were more of a nip, now they are extremely painful and causing bad bruising/ bleeding.  We are both really worried, could this be her hormones settling down?

She is a house rabbit, she goes in a large cage over night or when we’re out but she mostly has a free run and sits quite contented next to us.

Would be very grateful if anyone has any advice?

Thank you

[bunnnnnnie!]

A lot of times I’ve heard their hormones go through a temporary spike after being fixed – perhaps that is the culprit? In either case, it sounds like she’s trying to guard her food. If you can, put food in her cage while she’s loose and playing so she doesn’t feel territorial about it. If that’s not an option, try offering a super tasty treat away from her food dish, so she realizes human hand in cage = food GIVEN, not food being taken away.

My female rabbit was not a happy camper when I first got her and would refill her pellets/hay… she’d box at me and give little angry bunny grunts. I started giving her a treat, THEN while she was eating, refilling pellets/hay. Now she’s figured out I never take food out, always just give more, and no more territorial-ness.

[Rufus]

I definitely agree with bunnnnnnie. My rabbit became way worse with hormaonal behaviours after being fixed than he ever was before. Give her another week or so and hopefully she’ll start to settle down. Rufus was much much better after 3 and a bit weeks. It sounds like she’s doing a bit of damage to you, you poor things, maybe gloves for when feeding?

[bunbunlov3r]

Its true, for about a month or a little longer after they are fixed there hormones are messed up, so give it some time, it should come down. Try to stay patient with her and understanding. I also think the gloves are a good idea and thick pants, too.

[LBJ10]

There is also the switcheroo method where you have 2 bowls and you rotate them. Shove new bowl with food into cage and then grab the empty one.

[Jen7751]

Thank you so much guys, you’ve provided some really useless tips and made me feel a lot better knowing it could be hormonal. The thing is she’s a super affectionate bun and she always is, when I go to her cage she licks my hair and fingers and then purrs happily for ages. She seems really content until pellets are around! She dives at them as if she’s absolutely starving, you really would think she’d not eaten in days lol! I am going to try bunnnnies suggestion, that is a great idea about getting her to associate hand as in giving, not taking away and also swapping bowls around and wearing gloves is a must! my partner and I both wear boots around the house as she randomly goes for our ankles when she thinks we have food! I’ve started scattering her food, which we were taught to do for a food-dominant dog I used to have, to teach him that he didn’t own a food bowl and there was nothing to get possessive over. It seems to have stopped her diving at that particular bit of the cage. Otherwise we are just letting her hop around as usual, any bites and she knows she’s going straight back to the cage, in fact she will even send herself in there so it’s almost as if she knows.

Thank you so much

[Author]

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