Bond broken between two rabbits in bonded trio

[Marie]

Hi everyone, I currently have a bonded trio made up of two females and one male, who are all fixed. The two females were only spayed 2 weeks ago, but they were given to me as a bonded pair. I kept them together after they were spayed because they kept snuggling each other and clearly wanted each other’s company. The older one is 1 and a half years old while the other is about 9 months old. They were very close to each other and bonded with my male rabbit together, and everything was going great. When I got home from school today, there were chunks of the younger female’s fur all over the room. I wasn’t sure who she was in a fight with so I kept a close eye on them all day, and later, the two females got into a tussle again. It wasn’t really them fighting, but more of the older female chasing and pulling hair out of the younger one. They’ve all been separated since then. I’ve already studied the process of rebonding rabbits, but since they’re both bonded to my male, who do I keep with him? Do I separate all three of them? My male rabbit gets along with both of them, and he would always switch between snuggling and grooming either one if they weren’t all together. Also what could have caused their bond to break? Can it be hormones because they were recently spayed? 

[Muchelle]

I’m thinking hormones, cause they need some weeks to get the hormones out of their system after spay/neuter. I’d keep all of them separated and restart the bonding process in a couple of months ^^

[Mikey]

Seconding its hormones. Females can have hormonal spikes for up to six months after being spayed. Hormonal spikes will cause them to act out hormonally (aggression, territorial, etc), which is what you are seeing now. The hormonal spikes come from her body shifting her estrogen and testosterone levels to get them back to good balance after being spayed. Youre best to keep everyone separate until after all hormones have died down. The more they fight, the less likely they will bond again in the future.

[Marie]

It’s only the females who are fighting so I should still separate all three? My male really loves the company of the other bunnies and always goes to snuggle one of them so I feel horrible having to keep him alone. ): the larger female only showed aggression to the other female but not to my male and seemed to always seek comfort from him. If separating all of them is the right thing, then I’ll do that, just wondering! How will I know when the hormones have died down? Thank you for all the responses by the way!

[Mikey]

Yep, all three need to be separated. If both are bonded to him but you only remove one, it could make bonding them back together much harder due to jealousy and singled out separation. When them all apart (but only a few inches apart so they can still see and smell one another), you preserve their bond where its at now which will make it much easier to bond them all back together after hormones die out

[Marie]

Okay, I’ll keep them all separated. Thank you so much for all the help!

[Author]

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