Do bunnies who are bonded still hump?

[lunavenus]

Hi! 

So my bonded pair bunnies that I had for a while now seem like one still humps the other quite frequently. They were bonded as babies and I never had a problem with them until I moved back to Cali. I can tell they are bonded because I see them grooming each other, sleeping together, relaxing together, eating together, and I RARELY EVER see them fighting, chasing, or fur pulling. The chasing happens occasionally when Luna gets fed up with constantly being humped I assume, but Venus doesn’t pursue her. It’s more like Luna gets annoyed, dashes away, and Venus follows, but they halt and everything is back to normal again. There’s no excessive chasing, or fighting etc. My question is WHY IS VENUS STILL HUMPING LUNA???????
I feel like Luna is getting fed up with this humping and afraid that it will ruin their bond. I thought bunnies stop humping each other after they establish the alpha and beta in the new environment?….. 

I feel like maybe it might be because when Venus went in for the spay a few months back, the docs found literally no uterus and no female reproductive organs. He checked for male organs as well and none. Her genitals say she’s a female tho! 

Could it be that somehow after al this time her hormones re being produced in an alternative way? Should I check with the vet to rule that out? Does higher hormones equal humping? They are both females BTW! I know they are supposed to hump each other during bonding but I didn’t know it could be still frequent even after bonding.??

It’s really awkward watching one such cute, innocent bunny hump the other really cute, innocent bunny!! HAHA 
I’m not really sure how to react when I see it happening. I read not to pull the humper off the humpee unless the humper is humping the face. Is that correct? 

[vanessa]

I agree to allow them to hump unless it is the face. With my bunnies, Merlin humped Guinivere throughout their time together. She always allowed it. Avalon humps Morgana occasionally, but she tries to get away from him. I don’t worry about it. They are always super snuggly. Avalon just gets exited sometimes. I’m not sure about the hormone question. The new environment could definitely shake things up.

[Mikey]

She could be producing both hormones (normal), with slightly higher doses of testosterone since she never had a uterus, so its possible that is why she is so hump crazy. Most bonded pairs hump after being cemented, but its usually on rare occasions or if something changes where they live. Since its been going on for a while with your bunnies, it sounds more hormone related at this point. Since they cant reproduce theres no worry there at all, but if you see Luna is getting too mad or stressed about the humping, you might have to look into ways to calm the humping to avoid breaking the bond and to avoid fights

You can try rubbing down Luna with a small stuffed animal and then giving it to Venus to see if she will go after the toy instead

EDIT
You should always pull the humping bun off after about 10 seconds and always remove face humping

[lunavenus]

@Vanessa
They have been in the new environment for about 2-3 weeks now so I don’t think there should be any problem (I hope!)… They didn’t fight or anything when they came back to Cali with me. They just re-establish their dominance hierarchy and after that they seemed fine. Until I saw one humping the other today and the occasional darting away.

@Mikey
I learned something new today: Bunnies can mount even when they are bonded lol. I’ll try that toy method. Luna doesn’t seem very stressed, but I am concerned since she darts off when she gets fed up. I just saw her a few moments ago going up to Venus to cuddle, so I’m going to assume that they are still a happy friendly bunny pair. I’ll make sure to separate them when I see face humping and when one is humping too long tho. Thanks for the advice!

[Azerane]

My Luna is spayed and humps my neutered boy Apollo. She does it every few days (that I see) unfortunately she seems to most often hump the face, but by the time I get over there to push her off it’s too late and Apollo will be annoyed and chase her off. When she mounts the proper way he just sits there and takes it. I’ve had them just over three months and they’ve been bonded for over a year.

[vanessa]

2-3 weeks is still a short time – I’v seen bunnies take 2-3 months tp get used toa new surrounding. Avalon and Morgana took maybe 3-4 months when I moved them.

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