Doe Suddenly Obsessed with Picking His Scabs

[Masaka]

So, yep, this is a bizarre and gross situation….

About 6 months ago, we brought home Masaka, a 3-year-old doe after an encouraging “play date” with our 6-year-old (but very energetic and healthy) male.

As she relaxed and her true personality came out, she became extremely aggressive and territorial, the kind where she showed no warning signs and would suddenly bite and draw blood.

After 6 months of constant experimentation, week-end long bonding sessions, practically every evening with our buns, every trick we could find on the internet and FINALLY! They’ve been a happy, cute couple, cuddling and grooming each other and binkying around together for about a week. After this massive trial, I can’t tell you how great it was to see these two critters so happy together.

Then suddenly, they woke us up in the middle of the night. But it was NOT a fight. After watching them, the female had discovered two scabs left on the male from their last tiff before they were bonded, and she had become obsessed with them.

She will try to gently groom him, but she will always gravitate immediately to the scabs and start biting at them.

Yep, pretty gross.

She’ll get going and chase him around ceaselessly picking at the scabs until they bleed and are hanging off, painfully catching on things.

With the constant attention, they’ve become quite painful to him, and since they’re not healed enough to remove, as she picks them they bleed. We’re a little worried that they’ll become infected. We’re more worried that this is going to mess up our difficult bond.

We have no choice (as we see it) but to separate them again until the scabs heal, so that she won’t have anything to pick at.

When they’re separated they stay up all night trying to get back to each other. When they’re together, it takes less than 10 seconds before she’s unintentionally hurting him and he’s trying to get out. She doesn’t seem to get why he doesn’t want her to groom him.

Really, any suggestions at all would be good. Can we put something bad tasting on the scabs to deter her? Is there anyway to not totally mess up the bonding progress? Can anyone tell us how to say “dude, stop that, you’re grossing me out!” in bun-language?

Anything?

[LittlePuffyTail]

She obviously thinks the scabs are dirty and wants to clean him. I recommend finding a way so they can be next to each other and see and smell each other, like through cage bars. And then after he is healed, put them back together in neutral territory and see how it goes.

I doubt there is any way to try to get her to stop “cleaning” him.

[Author]

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