Humping brothers but underage.. advice?

[Charlotteee95]

I’ve got brothers who are just over 3 months old and in the past 2 days or so we’ve noticed mounting i.e humping occurring between the two and obviously we don’t want any fighting and they’ve been bonded since they were tiny and we’ve had them since they were 11/12 weeks old. 

We don’t really want to separate them due to the fact it can cause them to be un-bonded and also we have one big outdoor cage an in the last few days invested in a indoor area for them (when the weather gets bad) so we don’t really have two separate areas.

I’m not sure if they’re testicles have dropped?

We want to get them neutered hopefully in the next 1-2 weeks. 

Any advice?

Should i be overly worried?

I don’t see any aggression in them, but i have noticed they have stuck together more than usual these past few days then i have seen them. I just obviously don’t want any damage to be done or bonds to be broken etc.. 

[Little Flamingo]

Unfortunately you will need to separate them now. The humping shows that they’re coming into puberty, which means fights and aggression between them become much more likely.

At this point you don’t really need to worry about their bond, as baby rabbits are never truly “bonded” so much as just tolerant of everyone. Once they’ve both been neutered and been given time for their hormones to drain (usually around 6 weeks, from the advice I’ve seen on the forum), you will need to go through the proper bonding process with them, but after that they should be happily bonded for life

[tobyluv]

Little Flamingo is correct, they need to be separated now. It doesn’t matter that they are brothers and have been together since birth. When they start going into puberty, with the hormones that brings, they cannot be together. Rabbits can severely injure each other when they fight, plus they can hold grudges which makes future bonding difficult. What they had was not a true bond. That only happens between rabbits who have been spayed and neutered and have gone through the bonding process.

They will have to be housed separately and let out for play and exercise separately. They shouldn’t even be allowed to access each other through cage bars, as that can result in bites to the face and ears.

Here are 2 good articles on bonding:

http://rabbit.org/faq-bonding-multiple-rabbits/

https://binkybunny.com/BUNNYINFO/tabid/53/CategoryID/9/PID/940/Default.aspx

Some articles may mention keeping the bunnies apart for only 2 weeks after their surgeries, but it’s best to wait a month or so before attempting bonding.

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