Bonded Bunnies Now Fighting

[Amanda]

My two bunnies, Merry and Pippin, are Holland Lops and are about 8 1/2 months old (they were neutered at 3 months). They’re brothers and have been completely inseparable, totally affectionate in every way. At least until about four days ago, when Pippin decided he wanted to hump Merry whenever he could. At first Merry would just hop away, a few times he let him for a few seconds. Today Pippin humped Merry and it started a chase and circling, and it ended in Merry getting a shallow scratch that drew blood. Both are okay, but I separated them by putting Pippin in their pen and let Merry run around the room. 

I’m very nervous, they’ve never fought like this and I’ve heard that bonded bunnies can unbond. Should I not put them back together again? They share the same pen, bed, feeding bowls, water bowl, and hay trough so separating them would mean putting up a whole new pen set up, but I don’t want them to get seriously hurt.

Nothing about their situation has changed, except about a month ago I moved their pen to the other side of the room (it’s a small room) and made the pen a little bit larger. They really like the pen, so much so sometimes it’s hard to get them to come out of it. But everything else is the same, so I don’t know what’s bringing this out of Pippin. Please help!

[Mikey]

Some rabbits will go through a phase where their hormones spike a little even though they are spayed/neutered. I would keep them close but separated for about a week (give or take a few days) then put them together again in a neutral area to see how they do

[Amanda]

I’ll have to do that. I tried putting a divider in their pen last night, but Pippin freaked out being separated over night, he’s very attached to Merry (but Merry is a lot more independent I’ve found). I then opened it and watched them, they were behaving so I let it be. Then early in the morning they were circling so I had to separate them again, but this time Merry was the aggressor chasing after Pippin. It looks like they can’t be together for a while after all.

[Mikey]

You shouldnt leave them over night until you can trust them together without fighting again. Can you try the separator and giving Pippin most of their shared items (like shared toys, litter box, ect)? Maybe that would make him feel better like he is not being abandoned by Merry

[Amanda]

I’ll try doing that, thanks for the suggestion. Now they’re even trying to pick fights through the pen, I’m completely baffled and upset. It just happened so suddenly.

[Mikey]

Thats pretty normal since they are only bonded inside of their cage/pen. So when one bun has the room, the one inside of the pen will get jealous. This should die town with time and patience. If they start to fight inside of the pen, youll want to try to do the carrier stress bond for 10 to 20 minutes before putting them back inside of the pen

[Amanda]

Is the carrier stress bond when you take them for a ride in the car while in the same carrier?

[Mikey]

Thats one form of it. Another form is leaving them in the carrier for a few minutes (around 20 minutes) where you intend on bonding them, and shaking (gently) a little bit if they start to nip or try to scuffle inside of it. Some people use boxes or totes for this instead of a carrier, but it all depends on the size of your rabbits and the amount of room you want to allow them to have. For stress bonding, the less room the better so they have no room to fight, but you also want to give them enough room to lay down a bit without being too squished

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