Lilly BIT me

[BunnyTheBunny]

BACKSTORY – Bunny has been significantly less active since his neuter but he has always been a super chill bun. At times I even wonder if he’s gotten the Bunny Blues. Sometimes he’ll just sit and stare into space with his ears straight back. Not sure if this is just the new him or if im being a paranoid bunny mom. He is super food motivated and seems to snap out of his “funk” when food or treats are involved. He loves willow so I normally buy willow balls and drop half of a treat into it and watch him go.

LILLY – I noticed that she is becoming increasingly demanding when its feeding time. She has started thumping and grunting even before I measure out their pellets. 

THE BITE – Tonight after their dinner, I dropped the willow ball with half of a treat in the middle of the floor and watched them both go for it. She seemed to be getting upset that she hadnt gotten the treat as yet (grunting and thumping) so while Bunny was preoccupied with the ball I decided to hand feed her the other half of the treat. She tried to snatch it out of my hand twice and ended up biting my middle finger and drew blood. I pulled my hand back, gasped in disbelief and either said “OW” or “NO” (lol cant remember which, it all happened so fast) and moved toward her. She immediately ran into her cage and I closed the door behind her.  

I have never been bitten by a bunny before. I know it happens and I know you’re supposed to shriek/squeal as they would BUT im moreso concerned because she is becoming increasingly aggressive. If im petting Bunny and she is nearby and notices, she runs over and grunts and bats at my hand and has ended up hitting Bunny a couple of times instead. Im also concerned because I am in the process of bonding them and although she has never shown any signs of aggression toward Bunny, her aggression towards me is getting worse. I dont want her to become aggressive towards him. Is there something that im doing wrong? 

[Kramer98]

I am also bonding my first pair at the moment.
I adopted a second bunny (bigfoot) this past Sunday and have been experiencing similar behavior.
Although my other rabbit (oreo) isn’t displaying any aggression I do sense that she is jealous whenever I tend to the other rabbit.
For example whenever I pet Bigfoot Oreo approaches and puts her head down for me to pet her.
If it makes any sense it’s possible that she is feeling neglected even if you may not be neglecting her.
Before you got the second rabbit she was your only child and now she has to share youb

my advice would be to give her some time to form a bond with the other rabbit. This will hopefully allow her to come to terms with the fact that you are not exclusively hers anymore and she will hopefully accept that and learn to share.

[Bam]

As for the biting, it seems she bit you by mistake? It’s in any case not cause for alarm when it’s a rabbit. Dogs must never bite humans, especially not bigger dogs – they have been bred not to and we consider it totally unacceptable if a dog bites a human “right out of the blue”. We still have to teach puppy dogs bite inhibition, even though they to an extent have this inhibition bred into their genes after living with humans for about 40 000 years.

Rabbits are far less thoroughly domesticated than dogs. We’ve kept rabbits as house pets for a very short time, practically just a few hundred years if even that long. That means they still have a lot more of the wild rabbit in them. Your reaction to her bite was good – she doesn’t seem to have gained anything by biting you, and that is vital, because animals, humans included, learn by trial and success. In short: If something works, you keep doing it. If something doesn’t work, you try something else if you’re reasonably clever. Most rabbits are reasonably clever.

I do think Kramer makes a good point about your girl being “jealous”. You are an important resource, you bring food and treats and pets and toys. Now there’s another rabbit competing with her over this important resource. She gets angry, much like a young child that gets a sibling.

[BunnyTheBunny]

She is the newer addition to the family but that still does make sense. Im just a little confused by her. I actually started a thread regarding her behavior when we first brought her home. She would growl, lunge and bat at me but never showed any signs of aggression towards Bunny thankfully. They’ve always gotten along really well since the very beginning. Her behavior with me has gotten much better since then. Now when I come near her she still kind of charges at me but she also puts her head down for pets at the same time. When I go to pet her, she runs away.  Its like im darned if I do, darned if I dont.

[Bam]

What you describe is exactly how my bunny Yohio was when we started to get to know each other! He growled and lunged and boxed at me, then immediately put his head down for pets. I think it’s about conflicting emotions, at least that is how similar behavior in cats is explained. The survival instinct (which is strong in animals that still have quite a bit of “the wild” in them) says: Danger! Attack! And then there’s another part of the brain that goes “but head pets are really nice…” With my Yohio the niceness of head pets gradually won over his instinctive fear.

The one intruder he never came to terms with was the broom. Horrible broom came into his area and stole his poop and leftover hay. Horrible broom often got a good beating, but it never learned.

[BunnyTheBunny]

Same here!  Once the broom comes out.. forget about it. Who knew these little fluffy babies could be so complex  Sometimes I get frustrated but then I think about how far she came since the first month. I believe it may also be that she wasn’t well socialized – sometimes when im petting her she kind of jumps like its new to her. Its a little heartbreaking. I wish I could save all of the bunnies.  Thank you both for your replies! They’ve been really helpful  Happy holidays to you all!  xoxo

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