Bonded Rabbits Fighting

[CrumpetAndBrulee]

Hello everyone!  I have been reading this forum for a couple of years now (and ordering fabulous Binky Bunny products from the store’s website) and have received so much helpful information just from reading all of the posts here.  I finally took the plunge and joined officially!

 I would love your advice about my current bunny difficulty.  For some background: I have a 2.5 year old neutered male Holland Lop (Crumpet) and a 1.5 year old spayed female Holland Lop (Brulee).  We (the hubs and I) had Crumpet for about a year before adding Brulee.  We did our research before adding her and took Crumpet on bunny dates with her (letting him choose his buddy) before deciding to bring her home.  We carefully went through the bonding process and although it took a bit of time, it was successful and they’ve been best buddies ever since. As with any bonded pair, they squabble occasionally.  Crumpet has typically been the dominant rabbit and Brulee challenges him every once in a while, but he usually shakes it off and she gives up.  

However, about a month ago, we started noticing mounting on a regular basis.  Both buns are mounting the other.  Crumpet also started following Brulee around (which is odd because he has typically been such a mellow guy) and mounting her at every opportunity.  We’ll see that a few times a day, but the rest of the time they’re cuddling and playing together.  The past week, though, we have seen increased aggression (on both sides) and fighting (circling, lunging, honking, pulling at fur).  We separated them and they calmed down and were able to come back together until last night.  We separated them and tried to put them back together (in the bathtub – a neutral place, with a hairdryer in hand to add some noise stress if necessary to break up the fighting) to no avail.  Although they would calm down momentarily, the fighting would begin again about a minute later.  We felt uncomfortable leaving them together alone overnight, so we separated them.

Of course I have been doing as much research and reading as possible to see where to go from here.  I realize that they probably need to be separated and re-bonded.  I’ve seen varying lengths of time to keep them apart, but what are your opinions?  Do we go for the long term separation right away (I’ve heard of up to a month with no sight or smell of each other) or try shorter periods first?  It’s breaking my heart to see them fighting after a year and a half of being best buddies. 

Sorry to be long-winded!  Thanks in advance for your help!

 

[JackRabbit]

I’d be curious what some of the experienced bunny bonders have to say (I jumped on for a minute to bump your post up so hopefully one of them will see it).

My girl bun gets a little nippy with her bonded brother at times to keep him in line. If he doesn’t move or stop whatever she wants him to stop doing, she will occasionally try humping. He’ll either hump or back and it ends, I’ll “thump” and it ends, or one of them will hop away or start grooming the other. Always ends with them grooming each other within seconds. The only time they have gotten close to fighting was when we were trying to bond our third bun with them and everyone got a little edgy.

[Stephanie D]

What ended up happening? I’m in a similar situation….

[Author]

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