Humping while bonded

[mia]

So I’m back to having a trio but this is the first time I had two girls; previously, it’s always been two boys and one girl.

I would consider them fully bonded for 3 weeks and they were together in xpen since meeting for one month prior to that. I’ve only previously dealt with humping during bonding sessions but never when fully bonded. In this case, there was no humping during the one month they were bonding.

After being fully bonded, at least once a week, my newest girl (Momo) will sneak up on my other girl (Anpan), who is QUEEN, and start humping her. Anpan would immediately get angry and nip Momo. 5 mins later they are besties.

Question, do I need to interfere when this happens / when do I need interfere? I realize their relationship is still developing. Note that as Queen, Anpan nips her friends, or my ankles, any time she’s annoyed.

[LBJ10]

Humping is not necessarily a concern. I would only interfere if Anpan appears to want to escalate things. You said she gives a nip and Momo backs off immediately?

[mia]

Yes but Anpan’s nips mean she ends up with mouthful of fur, including pulled fur, and then she eats it (I have some thick syrup from the vet for her eating fur).

Before Momo joined, when it was just Anpan and Mooncake (the boy), Anpan would nip Mooncake so much he hid in the bathroom overnight. So, I can see if Momo doesn’t stop, that it possibly escalates and strains the relationship.

[LBJ10]

Oh wow, I guess when she nips, she goes all out. Have you tried redirecting Momo? It works sometimes for boys to redirect them to a stuffed animal. Maybe it will work for a girl bun too? The idea is they still get that urge to hump something satisfied without the humpee getting upset.

[LBJ10]

Something just occurred to me. Could Momo be doing it out of stress? We had a stress humper and he would get the urge to hump for reasons outside of the relationship. For example, fireworks, loud noises, etc.

[mia]

They do have stuffies but ever since they found each other, they ignore the stuffies (and me :lol:).

Every time I have seen Momo hump, I have not noticed anything particularly happening. I do see Momo eyeing Anpan’s backside for a good half minute beforehand like she’s determining if it’s a good time to do so, once she starts, she seems cautious in the beginning like she’s just testing it out and seeing if Anpan has a reaction, and then she goes for it. It’s very different from when I’ve seen it before during bonding where I see a bun quickly make a decision and just go for it.

 

[LBJ10]

Hmm… that’s interesting. For what it’s worth though, there was definitely a delayed reaction. The humping didn’t always immediately follow the stress-inducing thing.

[Bam]

A week ago I took both my buns to the vet when Lage, the younger, more skittish one of them, was getting his yearly RVHD-vaccination. I figured he needed his girlfriend Snöa for moral support. Everything went well.

The day after I caught Snöa humping Lage’s head. I’ve never seen either of them showing any kind of aggression towards the other.

I separated them, then Snöa immediately went for Lage’s head again. I firmly told Snöa head humping is completely unacceptable – and she responded by  running up to me, like for protection. “Mommy, Mommy, he’s being MEAN!!!” 🙄

It hasnt happened again -so far. I suspect it had sth to do with the stress of the vet visit the day before (which was completely uneventful from a human’s POV).

Rabbits are very peculiar animals.

[Author]

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