Food aggression in bonded pair

[Sparky04]

I wasn’t sure if this should go in bonding or behavior since they’re an already bonded pair, but I took a guess. Bonding Ava and Mordecai went off without a hitch and they’ve been bonded for about 1.5 years. Some background: Ava’s always been the more pushy and bossy one, but in the past Mordecai would usually let her know if she was pushing him too far, but he doesn’t anymore. They’re both fixed. Ava’s close to 4 years old, Mordecai’s around 5 years old. Ava’s about 4.5 pounds, Mordecai’s about 4 pounds even. They’ll sleep cuddled up together but aren’t super needy with each other. Somedays they’ll spend almost the whole day together, while other days they’ll both do their own thing. 

They’ve never had a serious squabble, just chasing and nipping. Ava’s food aggressive with Mordecai and us. But with us, she’s almost all bluff and if you call her bluff she gives up. 

But she’ll attack Mordecai over greens, fruit, and pellets, or even if she thinks someone is bringing food. They always have hay and I’ve never seen her attack him over hay. She seems to be getting worse about food aggression with him, to the point where he seems nervous about approaching the food. Giving separate bowls doesn’t help, because she’ll still go over to his bowl if he’s eating. She’ll nip him but has never drawn blood. Ava’s my rabbit and Mordecai is my dad’s, so my dad is thinking about separating them. Which I rather not do because they’ve lived together for almost 2 years and enjoy each other’s company.

 Should we separate them if they’re getting food that’s not hay? I also don’t understand why she’s getting more food aggressive. Advice would be greatly appreciated. 

[Gina.Jenny]

I don’t use food bowls at all, I scatter the food all over the floor for our six buns (3 boy/girl pairs) as several of ours have food aggression, two made worse by living feral and being malnourished before we rescued them. It needs to be over a big enough area the aggressive one can’t defend it all

[Sleepy]

Guinness used to be fairly food aggressive with Bleu, mostly over pellets, the moment she knew it was coming. We found a few things helped: first, we made sure to prepare the food out of their sight, since we found they got very agitated and excited (and more prone to aggression) if we did it in front of them; second, in addition to separate bowls, we made sure Guinness wasn’t allowed to go for Bleu’s bowl until he’d had his fill (since it lets him eat in peace and Guinness is forced to focus on her bowl enough to help her eat and calm down). Guinness got thumpy with us at first but we haven’t seen as much aggression towards Bleu since then.

If you got more than just one person feeding them, it could help too to have one person keeping her from going at him just to show it’s not acceptable/deter her from it.

[sarahthegemini]

It might not be the most practical long term but how about putting Ava’s food in a bowl so she’s focused on that and then hand feeding Mordecai?

[The Well Kept Rabbit]

Hi Sparky! 

Your post is from a little over a year ago but I’m curious how your food aggressive bunnies are doing and if you found that their behavior changed over time? I have two in a very similar situation…almost exactly actually. I hope to hear that over time the aggression diminished!

[Bam]

Hi and welcome, The Well Kept rabbit!

This thread is somewhat old, but it’s not super-old. Sparky might not see your post, but hopefully there are other members that have dealt with food aggression successfully.

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