Fight during bonding

[BB8]

Hello everyone, I’ve been bonding BB8 and Mister Babadook for a while now. They’ve been doing pretty great and eventually I tried  them in semi-neutural area and that went great. No territorial behavior at all and we spent 6 hours for two days with pure bliss! Mutual grooming, flopping, binkys, the bunnies seemed so happy. Until the 3rd day near the end of the 6 hours they got in a tussle and pulled each other’s fur. I stopped the fight and smooshed them together and pet them and they relaxed again. After that they tried to start fights but I was able to stop it before happening and everything seemed to be at a standstill for a couple of days. They were still very relaxed and seemed happy together but sometimes they would try to fight. I thought that that maybe a change of location would help, so today I moved them to another place(it was a place where I had them previously for bonding but they didn’t spend a long time there, only a few days) and put them in a smaller ex-pen. They did okay, another attempt at starting a fight but there was mutual grooming and they both seemed very happy. I left them alone for a minute to get their cages ready for bed and I heard the ex-pen moving so I rushed to them and.. Ah lots of fur was pulled.I was frazzled and just pushed them apart and tried to calm them down by petting them and then I put them in their separate cages for the night. I checked them for injuries and they were both fine, no blood or scratches. They did lose a lot of fur though.. I’m thinking I might go back to pre bonding for a few days. What do you guys suggest?

The reasons why they try to start fights is because BB8 wants more grooming from Mister Babadook. Mister B does groom BB8 but BB8 is always shoving his head under Mister B’s head for more grooming, Mister B will sometimes ignore him and then BB8 will nip him to get his attention. Mister B gets tense from the nip BB8 seems to as well. And from there they start to circle each other which leads to a fight.

Any advice would be really appreciated!! Thank you!

[Dface]

Normally the rule of thumb with bonding is if you take a step forward and it’s not working, take a step back.

Sounds like your pair are just trying to figure stuff out, which is normal, but putting them back into completely neutral territory might help.

What often happens is the semi neutral area becomes less neutral as time goes, and becomes communal, so one bunny will often change its tune about sharing things the longer they spend there, and will begin to exhibit dominant behavior.

During bonding you should be continuing the pre bonding steps anyway-cages swapped toys changed, cages near each other etc, so if the fights are continuing I’d advise stress bonding sessions before putting them in a neutral area.

Do be careful not to leave them unattended for any lengths of time during this phase as it really is a very sensitive time-one bad fight and that’s the end of bonding for ~ 6 months

Also how big is the space? There is huge debate over this – some say use small space, others say as big as possible. There’s merits in each but sometimes playing with the space you give them can help change how bunnies interact

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