my rabbit attacks me

Question
Hi,

I have a mini lop bunny she is about 6 months old now and over the last 2 months every time i go into her cage to give her food or change her water she will attack my hand she has bitten me a few times aswell.

she won't let me pick her up and she doesn't like to be touched but when we got her at first she loved to be picked up... now i am worried that she hates me and i don't know what to do.

i have thought about getting her desexed but the vet said that her behavior may not change and she would continue to bite and be very territorial this true??

I do have another rabbit who is a year older, the first time that we tried introducing the two they got into a fight and the newest one ended up with an abscess. they are now nowhere near each other but could that have something to do with her "mood swings".

i just don't know what to do with her as she is always now so aggressive towards me.

thanks for your help.

Answer
Hi,

this is hormonally-driven behavior.  When females become sexually mature, as yours did two months ago, they become more territorial and can become cage-aggressive.  The cage is really their private warren and they don't want hands reaching in when they are in there.  They would do the same thing if they were underground and defending their particular area in the warren.

Getting her spayed by a good rabbit vet will greatly reduce the problem, if not eliminate it.  Almost always it reduces the problem significantly.  Rabbit hormone levels run pretty high when they are sexually mature.  Getting her spayed will allow her personality to be able to control her actions, not hormones.

I would probably look around for another vet in your area that handles rabbits, if this one believes it doesn't help much (it does).  Only a good rabbit vet, because you want one who does spays regularly and has a high success rate, and one that will prescribe both post-op antibiotics and 3-5 days of pain meds (metacam) for your gal.  I'd start here:

www.rabbit.org/vets/vets.html

to find a House Rabbit Society recommended vet near you.

A good rule of thumb, though, with cage aggressive females, is if you can deal with issues in her cage when she is out playing outside the cage, it's best to do it then.