Bonded rabbits had a big fight

[Darren]

Hi

Hoping for some help and advice what to do next.

We bought bubbles in May he bonded really closely to us and loved following us round and licking our hands and face etc. he got neutered in August and in September we bought a female rabbit squeak. Over the course of two weeks we bonded them and by the end of September were living together happily.

However on Tuesday we came down to blood in their pen and bubbles had bitten part of squeaks ear off she had loads of scratches on her back and he had bites on his ear. We took them to the vet and she gave them anti biotics and we got squeak spayed the next day too.

We have a 2.4m by 1 metre house for them to live in that we built they have one food bowl and water and one place for hay. At moment we have there house separated by a wire fence so they are still close to each other but can’t get to each other. Everything was bubbles before we bought squeak but they had been fine for 2 months.

We let them see each other tonight squeak layed her head down under bubbles and bubbles ignored it and went sniffing round her back so we picked him up just incase he had a bite at her as it is only one day since she was spayed.

This is our first pair of rabbits and are really unsure what to do next and are unsure why they could of fell out. We just want them to get back to normal so any advice would be great.

Thank you in advance

[tobyluv]

Hi Darren and welcome to Binky Bunny. Your bunnies might have fought because Squeak wasn’t spayed yet. Spaying and neutering is always the first step before attempting bonding. Sometimes rabbits will lose their bond, even rabbits that are spayed and neutered, without any specific reason why it happened. You didn’t say how old Squeak is. If she was very young when you first put them together, she wouldn’t have reached sexual maturity yet, so they might have bonded without problems then. But if she later reached the age when her hormones kicked in, that might have been the reason for the fighting. You need to let her recuperate from her surgery before putting them together again. That should take between one and two weeks. Keep them next to each other while you are waiting, but don’t let them have any contact until she is healed. Then you can start the bonding process again.

[Author]

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