Brothers buns personality changed over night!

[Smokeyandthebandit]

Hi all! I am new to this forum and to being a bunny mom!
My boys are California new zeland mix and are litter mates. They were born May 3rd and I had booked their neuter for Aug the 3rd. The night before last they went to bed in their pen that they share after having free play and all was well, at about 5 am I was woken up by a crash from downstairs so I came down to investigate and realized they were in the midst of a brawl ?. I quickly broke it
Up but there was fur flying. My biggest boy Smokey seemed to be the instigator, he was chasing his brother Bandit. I secured smokey in the pen and bandit in the bathroom and built a divider for the pen which has now been dubbed the Berlin Wall. When I put them back in the pen before I could get the divider in they were grooming and snuggling with each other and spent the afternoon doing this. Then the evening came along and mr. Bandit decided it was time for another scrap so we quickly broke them up and but the divider back in. Today Bandit is doing the biting and chasing when I let them out for treat time. Tomorrow is their neuter date and I am freaking out about them being under anesthesic and also worried that after the surgery they will continue to fight . We are lucky to live in a huge 4H community and have a rabbit savy vet. However they are my babies. Does anyone have any advice?!? When should I rebond? And how? Any help would be appreciated!

[tobyluv]

It’s good that you have them separated. Rabbits can severely injure each other when they fight. Fighting and being injured can also make them hold a grudge, which can make bonding very difficult.

They evidently had a sudden surge of hormones due to puberty, which is why the fighting started. It doesn’t matter if rabbits are siblings and have grown up together. When the hormones come flooding in, they cannot be kept together.

You will need to wait around a month after their surgeries before attempting their permanent bond. They only had a temporary baby bond previously. It can take a month or more for the hormones to abate, so they shouldn’t even be let out for play and exercise together. You can keep them in the same room, just don’t let them have any physical access to each other, not even through the cage bars.

After a month or so, you can begin the bonding. I’ve had great success using an x-pen. My husband and I get in with the rabbits, to stop any fighting (which we’ve never had) or to stop excessive humping. But there are many methods.

Here are 2 good articles:

http://rabbit.org/faq-bonding-multiple-rabbits/

https://binkybunny.com/BUNNYINFO/tabid/53/CategoryID/9/PID/940/Default.aspx

[LBJ10]

Yep, puberty will do that. It’s like a light has been switched on. I agree with Toby.

[Smokeyandthebandit]

Thank you for the advice! 
They had their neuter yesterday and all went well! 
The set up we have for their pen is going to have to change however, we had built a divider to split the pen in half however only one end has a gate, so if we want to get Smokey out we have to either pick him up (Which he HATES) or take the divider out and let him walk through, tonight I let Bandit out so that I could allow Smokey out to run and while I was luring Bandit back in with treats Smokey came over to get one and then all hell broke loose so I grabbed Bandit as quick as I could but they got a good brawl going before I could get a grip on him . They both seem to not have any war wounds that I can see (Mom got a few). I feel terrible, I should have known better and if something would have happened I would have been completely beside myself. I am so new to bunnies and its a learning process. But they trust me to keep them safe and tonight I really messed up. This momma is sorry 

[LBJ10]

I wouldn’t beat yourself up too much. It sounds like not much harm was done. They will still have hormones in the weeks following the neuter. It can take 4-6 weeks sometimes for everything to leave their system and things stabilize. So definitely keep them separated until they have calmed down. Then you can begin the formal bonding process.

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