Epic fights between giant bunnies

[Brandywine]

So my two flemish giants, Hugh and Jess, are having a rough patch and I need some help.

They are brother and sister, when I got them they were bonded, but I split them up while they both got neutered. Hugh stayed on the side deck, Jess in the lounge. Once it was okay to introduce them again, I just penned off a bit of lounge for Hugh to explore into from his area. They sniffed through the x-pen for a few days, then I put them into a small pen together. A few minutes of Hugh humping Jess and everything was okay. After that they were completely fine and had the lounge and front deck to explore on, which they did for a few months very happily. 

However I had to shift them to a big outdoors enclosure, which they were in for nearly two months, and just loved. But they did eat the grass down quite a bit. 

One day I came out to find Jess subdued, and lots of bunny fluff. She’d been attacked by something…. I didn’t think it was Hugh at the time, but grass was getting lower and maybe tempers were getting short. But the next day I decided to shift their enclosure. 

They loved their new enclosure. But that night Jess disappeared….. then Hugh. Into the thick forest on a bank behind our place. 

Hugh came back the next day and was recaptured, and put into the repaired enclosure. But Jess disappeared for 9 days, finally some people living on the road above us found her eating their seedings, they saw a flyer I dropped off and I went and got her. 

I kept Jess in the lounge for about a week to feed her up – no damage done but she was a bit skinnier. Once I felt she was an okay weight I put her back in the enclosure with Hugh. Huge mistake. The new enclosure was “Hugh’s territory” and 2-3 weeks seems enough for bunnies to un-bond. 

Hugh immediately attacked her, blood and fur and screaming everywhere, I was wearing my slippers and shorts and was lucky not to be damaged while trying to grab poor Jess, who was trying to run away. Hugh did go for my legs while I was carrying Jess, and I had to kick at him a few times. 

So Jess came back inside to the lounge, and Hugh stayed outside – I just worked a 12-day stretch and a big storm hit, so I couldn’t bond them again. Hugh managed to escape from the new enclosure after 2 weeks, the very day I was going to set up and re-bond them, but was recaptured easily onto the front deck. (His new name is Hughdini).

So for a few days they were watching each other through the ranch sliders. I’d open the slider a crack and they could smell each other. They’d eat next to each other through the glass, were very interested in each other, and Jess would even flop down next to the glass when Hugh was there. 

Today I put x-pen panels into the ranch slider so they could really smell each other, and they ate food next to each other too. No signs of aggression. But tonight Jess just managed to dislodge the jamb on the ranch slider, pull it open and run outside onto the deck…. and instantly there was a terrific bunny fight. I mean, huge. Jess weighs 3.8kgs and Hugh 4.2kgs. And they were going at it, Jess was giving as good as she was taking, at the end they were lying on their sides raking at each others bellies. Fur EVERYWHERE. Again I managed to separate them (using the outdoor furniture to help me!) without getting hurt. 

Jess is back inside, and Hugh is back outside. 

Now how do I try and bond these two? They are BIG and STRONG. For instance, putting them in a cardboard box and going for a car ride won’t work, they’d bust out of any box in a matter of minutes. We have a bathtub but they’d easily both jump straight out of it. I was going to use part of the outside deck (as they have both lived there together, and lately separately) but maybe it would be regarded as ‘Hugh’s” territory since he is out there now? 

We don’t have much in the way of neutral spaces since we’ve used the whole house. Hugh is also very wary of me now and is very difficult to even touch, let alone pick up. He won’t even eat food from my hand, or even once I’ve put it down – he leaves it alone for at least half an hour. Very suspicious. 

We are shifting to a new house next month and they cannot be inside bunnies anymore – they will have a custom made pen behind the garage made from pool fencing. But they have to be together. 

HELP!

[Mykl]

If you want to earn his trust you’re going to have to spend a lot of time cuddling him.

With such vicious fighting you probably need to wait quite a while before trying again.

For neutral territory you could try a friends house or, bearing in mind the need to give her time to forget the attacks, wait until you’ve moved.

[tobyluv]

There is always a possibility that your rabbits won’t re-bond, so you need to be prepared to house them separately if needed. It’s rare, but I know of instances where rabbits that once lived together peacefully, suddenly starting fighting and eventually had to be kept apart after attempts at re-bonding.

Do you have a carrier for your rabbits? Or a small cage? Whatever you use to take them to the vet. You could put them in it and take them for a car ride. But with all the fighting, you should have someone else in the car with you, to stop any fighting if it gets vicious.

It’s really better for rabbits to be inside. If you have to keep them outside, you have to make sure that their enclosures are totally predator proof, and that they cannot dig out or get out at any place. That means having strong fencing such as hardware cloth on all sides and on top and even on the bottom, buried a few inches down. You are lucky that Jess survived for those 9 days, and didn’t come back ill, injured or with parasites.

[Brandywine]

Update: I kept Jess and Hugh in separate pens beside each other for nearly a month, and they were successfully re-bonded for the house shift.

When I let them into their pens for the first time, they flew at each other and boxed through the panel for a few seconds. Then they worked out they couldn’t get to each other and gave up.
Both their chairs and their hideyholes shared the mesh wall so even when they were relaxing they were next to each other. I switched them over a few times as well so each bun was in the other’s enclosure.

Then when moving day came, I trapped Hugh in a really big old-fashioned cat cage, and got Jess in her normal cage.
I carried them both into the laundry, shut the doors, got Jess and dropped her very quickly into Hugh’s big cage, shut the lid and picked the whole cage up. I walked around with them for a little bit, jostling the cage, and they didn’t fight, just looked around and snuggled together.
Got in the car, drove to the new house (15 mins away), and put them into their new, very small hutch.
They stayed there for 2 days while I built a run extension for them. Funnily enough they still preferred to stay in their tiny hutch together.
On Christmas Day they had a fight – I came home from Lunch to find fur everywhere, but whatever their issue was, it’s worked out now and they are friends again. All the pellets were gone, so maybe like last time, they fight if there’s a shortage of food.

Now they are in their permanent enclosure and loving life. I know this site doesn’t approve of outdoor bunnies, but at this house the bunnies are simply NOT allowed inside. Their enclosure is 13 square metres, has 2metre high walls, a hutch, a balcony, a digging box (used to be a strawberry patch but the bunnies made quick work of those!), a sand bath area, some concrete, grass, a very large overgrown shrub to hide under, and boxes to jump up and down on. There is lots of binkying and flopping and rolling in the sand. I have a proper gate to walk inside, sit down and hang with my bunnies.

Hugh is friendlier as well, he will run up to me (unheard of before!) and tolerate being patted for quite a while. The neighbours have a bunny they let roam their garden and it often ventures out of the property. So all the local cats are used to bunnies. I am concerned about dogs, but the fencing is secure and high, and they have bolt holes behind the hutch.

So just letting you know that even my GIANT bunnies who were trying to kill each other can be rebonded! Thanks for all the great advice!

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