My 4 months old bunnies are brothers from the same litter. They have not been nutered. Mathias has always been the dominant one of the two, and Bosse has been really submissive, to anyone around, humans and Mathias. He is constantly licking and grooming us and his brother. But lately (the last two couple of days), there seems to be a change in their hierarchy. Earlier today i saw Mathias humping Bosse, but bosse was facing his genitals so i interrupted them. After that they never continued and i feel like it was just left hanging in the air, like it wasn't resolved. In addition, Bosse seems to have been "testing" Mathias' boundaries, being just a tad cheeky (which is utterly unlike him). But I'm just starting learning "how to speak rabbit" so I'm not at all sure.. 

Adding to that, Mathias has begun licking everyone aswell, and grooming Bosse a lot. He is currently grooming Bosse more than Bosse is grooming him. 

This is all probably normal teen bunny behaviour. I'm just wondering if this is normal? 

Also, I'm getting just a tad addicted to this forum

Hi  This definitely normal teenage bunny behavior. They're just figuring out who is the "boss". This should go away or get better with neutering.

Even with my bonded neutered/spayed pair they still seem to have changes in who's the more dominant one. 

When do they get neutered? If it's a bit away still, I would probably consider getting a second back-up cage/pen so you're prepared in case they need to be separated suddenly. Humping can often be a dominance thing, but since they're also unneutered, it's largely driven by hormones right now.

Also, be sure to have a vet double check the gender so it doesn't turn out that one is female. (Which will now result in an accidental litter.) Many do not have their gender determined correctly at a young age, even by vets sometimes, and it can be wrong until they reach sexual maturity. That's what's starting the change of behavior - hormones. So definitely have that second cage, with space between them, and if possible, have them rechecked for gender by the vet to make sure you don't need to separate them immediately until a month after a neuter, which you would do with a male/female pair. (Don't assume the passive one is female, either!)

It might be a simple trip to the vet to stop by, schedule their appointments for neuter, and a quick look to confirm it's a neuter procedure for both. (Unless you have definitely seen a protruding penis on both of them. Look for it when each one starts humping something.)

I can fully understand, as my two boys Chipmunk and Hazel are hitting that age and are taking turns humping eachother. I have been keeping a close eye on them to make sure they do not start getting too agressive. thank god they will be fixed next month, I would do it sooner but the vet wants to try to put a little more weight on them saying its safer for them getting fixed.

Posted By RabbitPam on 08/06/2012 06:05 AM
Also, be sure to have a vet double check the gender so it doesn't turn out that one is female. (Which will now result in an accidental litter.) Many do not have their gender determined correctly at a young age, even by vets sometimes, and it can be wrong until they reach sexual maturity. That's what's starting the change of behavior - hormones. So definitely have that second cage, with space between them, and if possible, have them rechecked for gender by the vet to make sure you don't need to separate them immediately until a month after a neuter, which you would do with a male/female pair. (Don't assume the passive one is female, either!)

It might be a simple trip to the vet to stop by, schedule their appointments for neuter, and a quick look to confirm it's a neuter procedure for both. (Unless you have definitely seen a protruding penis on both of them. Look for it when each one starts humping something.)

I have triple checked them, they are both definitly boys They are getting nutered within the month, but we haven't scheduled a proper date yet. I will be getting that second cage, thanks for the reply

Thanks for the replies