My two male rabbits just went all UFC!!!!

[ZooLady]

Did something completely stupid tonight.  Left to go see a movie leaving my bedroom door open, and my two male rabbits had a wrestling match in my absence. 

Normally my older male does not leave the bedroom, and the newer younger male does not venture far past his cage in the living room.   I came home to find fur, buttons and torn carpet everywhere.  However, the two buns were relaxing about a foot from each other.  They made a few mini attacks at each other after (I figured the damage was done, I may as well observe them a little to see if they got the fighting out of their system) but seemed more curious about each other than hostile as they had been before in their first introduction.

Is it possible this terrible fight may have helped bond them?   I feel awful about it…one rabbit has a scratch on his eyelid which I need to get attended to by a vet as soon as I get up tomorrow.

How should I proceed from here?  Full on supervision from now on, obviously. 

I feel like a terrible bunny mother..

[Sarita]

You are not a terrible bunny mother. I do agree though that you should proceed cautiously to see what happens next. It’s hard to know what happened but I doubt that it actually help bond them – it may have helped establish dominance though.

[ZooLady]

Yes, my older typically territorially agressive rabbit seems more subdued today. He’s not even lunging at the cats as he normally does, and he keeps trying to go out and meet the other rabbit again–like he’s curious. He’s keeping his tail held very high and his ears pushed forward when he cautiously approaches Buddy. (What does this mean?) They’ve been sniffing each other cautiously, with a few tiffs now and then–I seperate them then.

[Sarita]

Did you check each rabbit over thoroughly too for wounds? I wonder if the older rabbit got wounded somehow which is why he is more subdued too.

[ZooLady]

I did. His eyelid seemed to have a little scratch. I kept an eye on it til morning, and now the swelling is gone and it’s back to normal. I did look them over for wounds/scratches. There were a few minor nips and scratches, but nothing major. The older bunny is eating normally and doing what he’d regularly be doing, just without a lot of the agression—which is a welcome change.

[ZooLady]

The eye that seemed alright showed some pus in the afternoon–took him to the vet for treatment–got some eye drops. A whole new worry now…I have a post about rabbit eye injuries in diet and care….hoping that it will all be well.

[babybunsmum]

yes unfortunately some injuries are really hard to find. before baby bun passed, when i was trying to bond her and pinky she suffered a good eye injury too. poor thing. i didn’t spot it until the eye started to discharge too. pinky also had a scratch which was really really hard to detect since her fur is so thick and she’s very good about keeping her self groomed. she’s all white for gosh sakes and i still missed it!

[MarkBun]

It is actually common that after two buns go at it hard and fighting that they will have worked out most of the dominance issue – at least for that area of the house. The quickest bonding method is to put the two together and let them have it out until they’re done however this can easily result in serious injuries or even death – hence why we don’t bond the buns like that.

[Author]

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