hair pulling

[DarkVenus]

some background:

my two rabbits, Nic & Wednesday, are housed in separate cages in the same room. their cages are about a foot apart because i intend to start the process of bonding them in about two weeks (after Nic has completely healed from being neutered) & i want them to be used to each other’s smell. this seems to be working well; they are extremely curious about each other. when ever i let either of them out to run around they do almost nothing try to play with the other still caged bunny.  they often share veggies through the cage & sometimes lie down next to each other. Wednesday often flops over on her side "bunny faint" style. this leads me to believe they will be a good pair.

 

the problem:

the past few days they have been grooming each other through their cages. this seemed like another good sign, until i noticed Nic occassionally jerking away from Wednesday as she groomed him. upon closer observation i noticed that Wednesday was pulling little tufts of fur from Nic’s face. he doesn’t seem to enjoy it, so i’ve been blocking off the area around Wednesday’s cage while Nic runs around. She only seems to behave this way when she is caged & Nic is not, so i wonder if it could be territorial? other than this, they get along really well. i was wondering if anyone else has seen this behavior & what i might do to discourage it.

thanks!

 

 

 

[MooBunnay]

Hello! Is your bunny pulling BIG tufts of fur, or just leaving one tiny bald patch? I have a bonded pair and the teenier bunny Kramer over grooms his girlfriend Juli. The result of this overgrooming is a teeny bald patch usually around the eye or forehead, but never much more than this and never leaving the skin irritated. Juli also kind of flinches when he grooms to hard around her eye, is this what it is like? I talked to a lot of different people about this, and most of them told me that if it realllly hurt her she would turn around and smack him (hahaha) and not to be too worried unless excessive amounts of fur were being pulled out, or if the skin is getting irritated. Just to give you an idea of the size of the bald spots that Juli gets from time to time – they are about the size of a half of a dime.

[Author]

Messages