Food aggressive bun

[NewBunnyOwner123]

Sally has gotten increasingly aggressive when it comes to feeding time. She lunges and growls when I try reaching down to grab her bowl or when I try putting her bowl back in stuffed with veggies. I cannot let her out because she is starting to chase my dog, Abbie and I don’t want to take a chance of breaking Abbie’s trust and comfort around the buns. When Sally tried humping her, she growled and I don’t want Abbie thinking that every time a rabbit comes around she is going to get dominated by a bunny. Not to mention, it’s really hard to boss Sally around currently. When I try stirring her to go back to her cage she is growling and trying to nip the whole way back and I don’t want her to get into a habit of growling and lunging to get her way. So she is in a permanent time out until she stops being aggressive towards the other animals and myself. (Her cage is large enough to be able to run and play until she calms down) 

Anyways, Sally’s spay is due on the 1st. The only time I have to deal with her aggression now is during feeding time. I can pet her all I want but if I reach for her bowls she starts getting aggressive. It’s hard to even put hay in her box because she will lunge at me. And she is FAST! What do I do?! I don’t want to get bit and I’m afraid she will learn this behavior  

what does this mean when Harley moves in? Will she become aggressive towards him when it comes to food? 

Will the spay alter this behavior? If not, I need tips on proper way to feed without getting bit. 

[Sarita]

The spay and age may eventually help this behavior – rabbits who are aggressive tend to really do better if they are not caged at all if she doesn’t grow out of this.

It is scary – I had a very aggressive rabbit who never grew out of this behavior despite age and altering – I don’t know his background other than he was a stray. He was happiest when he had the whole house to roam in and he was very good too – no bad habits.

I’m not into the shrieking that people sometimes recommend – I feel like an idiot doing that. What I used to do when Pepe lunged at me was put my hand on his head and try to put his head to the ground. I found basically that killing him with kindness helped reduce his aggression.

I would always recommend feeding/changing litter box/cleaning, etc…when she is out of her house.

[NewBunnyOwner123]

But she is attacking my dogs when let out of her cage I just let the dogs outside though to give her some play time but she will definitely need to go back in when the dogs come back.
I feel so bad she tries biting poor Bears feet and he’ll lift his foot out of reach so she goes for his other foot and he just looks like he is doing this awkward dance looking at me asking for help. :/

Once she gets spayed she will of course go back to being out but until then, I’d prefer her being locked up most of the day versus having to lock up my dogs… Hmmm I have done the hand on the head thing before when she showed aggression but when it comes to her bowls she tries really hard to get to my hand that is reaching for her bowls.

Maybe try a bait and switch type trick?

If she doesn’t get it out of the food aggression will that ruin her chances of being able to be housed with Harley? I think I can live with the food aggression towards me but I will be at a complete loss if she doesn’t stop attacking my dogs. I don’t want her being a confined rabbit.

[Sarita]

I think first, just get her spayed and give her some time. She may only be aggressive with you because you are putting your hand in her cage, it’s not necessarily food aggression, I think it’s more you are in her space. This is common for young unspayed females so don’t give up hope that she is going to be aggressive.

Once she’s spayed, this aggression is not going to change overnight though – she is probably going to be whacked out from the spaying (not the actual procedure) for a good month.

[NewBunnyOwner123]

Thank you! I guess it does make sense she doesn’t want me in her space. I pointed it to food aggression because she lets me pet her until I reach for her bowls But she probably just doesn’t like me touching her stuff lol hopefully this goes away when she gets spayed (I know it can take a few weeks after the spay date)

Crazy hormones! I actually feel bad for her!

[LBJ10]

I imagine she is probably upset when you mess with any of her stuff, including her food bowl. Where is her cage at? Could she maybe have a room to herself? You could put a baby gate up to keep her and the dogs separated until her spay.

[Baxter n Boos Mom]

Do you have an Xpen you can use to separate her from the dogs, while you get to her food bowl? But I think Sarita’s suggestion is probably the best. Putting her head down is also a sign of asserting dominance.

[NewBunnyOwner123]

Her pen is in the kitchen. We don’t have any extra room right the guest bedroom is currently my husbands “man cave” But when I get her bowl tonight for her evening salad I will see how putting her head down with my hand goes

And it’s kinda hard to keep her separate from the dogs because their food and water is in the kitchen. I prefer not to allow the dogs to drink and eat in the living room because Bear drools when eating and drinking and I don’t want it on my carpet lol

Anyways, Sally seems to have good days and bad days. Sometimes she is ok with my dogs and becomes buddy buddy with Abbie again and other days she is a complete grump and can’t stand anyone. She isn’t consistent with her attitude *sigh* I can’t wait to get her spayed and get everything all leveled out. the poor dogs are so confused how this sweet little bunny suddenly doesn’t like them lol and the next day she decides she loves them again lol

I’ll update the how the feeding goes tonight. I’m nervous about putting my hand right on her head while she is trying to attack me!

[tanlover14]

Simba is fine in an x-pen but when he was confined to a cage, he becomes very cage aggressive. He will lunge, growl, and nip whenever you try and touch anything that is “his”. Despite the fact that he is the most cuddlest lovebug ever. He was almost euthanized at a shelter for his cage aggression actually. Some bunnies just do BAD in cages.

As for her chasing and biting – I wonder if it’s just some of those hormones coming at her. I wouldn’t say she won’t be bondable to Harley as Simba had the same problem as your girl seems to be having and he’s now bonded to three other brats!

[NewBunnyOwner123]

Wow I guess I will need to make her pen larger :/ I can’t take up more space of my kitchen, so I will just add another level. But I will wait until after her spay.

My only concern is when I add the other level I won’t get to tidy up as well. I like things looking tidy. I liked being able to access her cage from the top to sweep and wipe down the floor. With two floors I’ll be having to get on my hands and knees to tidy up and it will be difficult getting the mess off of floors like stray hay strands and torn apart cardboard.

I may just have to start all over and find different “floor plans” for my bun.

QUESTION- when all buns are spayed and bonded they will have about 8-12 hours outside time. Can someone give me an estimated measurement of space two buns will need for their pen? I have those wire grids from Target. Her current cage is 2 grids wide, 3 grids long and when Harley moves in we were going to make a second level to double the space… Will this be enough? Because we CAN do a third level if need be but we assumed since they will be out most of the day it wasn’t as important to make a gigantic cage…
Now I feeling guilty that she just feels cramped or something. *runs to let Sally out*

[Beka27]

If you have a plank of wood for the level, balanced on dowel rods maybe, you should be able to just lift up the platform to clean. It shouldn’t be too hard.

Have you tried the “ol’ switcheroo”? Have a second bowl, feed her the veggies or pellets or whatever and while she’s nomming on that, take out the empty bowl. And then next time, just switch them back.

[Baxter n Boos Mom]

This is the grand daddy of bunny condos I’ve seen online 🙂 And simple to clean, according to the owner. Gonna see if the hubby wants to make this for our buns.
http://www.rabbitsonline.net/f69/our-bunnya-s-luxury-condo-picture-heavy-67409/

[NewBunnyOwner123]

Beka, that is a great idea! I will give that a try.

Baxter, that cage seems like it would be PERFECT for the limited space we have. My husband really enjoys building things and working with wood so I am going to share this with him and see if he is willing to build something similar I love how the front opens completely for easy access to clean up!

[Baxter n Boos Mom]

Me too! I may even ask my hubby to either build a track system so the floor can slide out for easy cleaning….or cut out a notch in the front of each floor – so you can easily brush out the mess.

[jerseygirl]

NewBunny, if this behaviour has increased a lot lately, it’s possible she’s having a false pregnancy. With the surge in hormones, their behaviour can change quite a bit thru one of these. There should be no problem going ahead with spay. I expect it should calm her right down.

That condo is very cool. I was thinking why use NIC grids, why not aviary mesh? But the white of the grids looks so much nicer. I love the bunny only door!

[NewBunnyOwner123]

It was a definite HUGE increase which really surprised me but I chalked it up to hormones. I am just glad I have her spay coming up in a few days…right on time lol

Anyways, I did the “ol’ switcheroo” and it worked wonderfully. Although, Sally likes to play me off as a liar and didn’t even care that I was trying to place a bowl into her cage.. I guess because it was a new bowl and she hasn’t yet “claimed” it as hers? So yeah, I looked like an idiot taking the extra precaution to this cute little innocent looking bunny. hmph. My husband didn’t believe me that Sally is aggressive and to be careful and when it came to feeding he wanted to watch… yeah, I looked stupid ;P lol

[Beka27]

I’m glad that worked for you!

Some buns will always be food aggressive, so the spay might not fix this. Not even food “aggressive” as much as food “excitable”. And some of them are “all bark and no bite”. They might lunge and push and try to get to their food dish, but wouldn’t actually lay teeth on you. They’re just really excited about dinnertime.

My buns get really jumpy around pellet time in the evening. They both dance around and more than once they’ve knocked the measuring cup from my hand. Something else I’ve done is lower the measuring cup to their level and let them each grab a pellet out. While they’re happily chewing their first bite, I can fill up their bowl in peace. I don’t remove the pellet bowl everyday, I only wash it out once a week, or as needed, so I don’t generally retrieve that from their space like the veggie bowl that needs scrubbing.

Hopefully these ideas help. Another option is to scatter the pellets around.

[tanlover14]

I do the same as Beka as my quartet is nothing but a hoarde of bunny flinging themselves all at me for dinner, LOL. Everyone gets a pellet out of the bowl and I get peace. If not, it usually ends up in pellets spilling everywhere as an excited bunny knocks into my hand.

Sally is such a turd! Hysterical that you say that because the Tans DESPISE being picked up. So when I had Fleury with me at the Petco doing some educational things on bunnies everyone was like awwww, I wanna hold him. BlahBlahBlah. I was like Simba here loves being held but Fleury – this is what happens when I pick him up…. Little brat sat in my arms like there was no care in the world. I was like “Really, FLEURY!?!?” LOL. So much for teaching people bunnies don’t like to be held. Brat. And Tanger usually bites when you try and pick him up, so then I tried showing the same girl who had been volunteering with me that day what I meant. And Tanger did the same Darn thing! I was like SERIOUSLY. You guys suck! LOL. I felt so dumb and she’s still convinced I exaggerate how much they fight me. LOL.

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