Behavioural Issues

Question
Hi,

I have very recently boight a male rabbit for me and my girlfriend. Before we picked it up we were told he was no longer wanted by his owners as he took a particular disliking to his female owner. Apparently he would consistently attack her for no apparent reason. However, this only happened to her and with everybody else he was absolutly fine with.

Since arriving he has now started to attack my girlfiriend on a couple of occasions and didnt really know why? It only seems to be femals he would attack.

He is a 8month House rabbit and does stil have his sexual
testostorone in tact.

What would you reccomend we could do to stop this? and what would be the reason as to why he is doing this? He is a very lively rabbit constantly running around.

I hope this helps answer my question.

Thanks

Answer
Hi,

he is a sexually mature, intact rabbit.  He is picking up on female pheromones and getting excited.  The 'attacking' isn't really attacking, it's trying to grip and maintain a mounting position.

THe solution (which the other folks didn't know) is to find a good rabbit vet (not all are) and get a pre-op checkup, and schedule a neuter.  In 4-6 weeks his hormones will stabilize at a new lower level and this behavior should drop greatly, if not go away.  If anything remains, it won't be the more aggressive behavior.

Neutering is good for male house bunnies because it will greatly decrease their sexual frustration.  THey also get to live with you with their true individualities making decisions, rather than having a flood of hormones overrriding what they'd otherwise do.  And of course, they can't get testicular cancer and have their lives shortened.  

The key is having a good rabbit vet do this, any kind of surgery on rabbits is very delicate and you need to go to a vet that is considered a 'rabbit vet'.  Start here to find one:

www.rabbit.org/vets/vets.html

to find a House Rabbit Society recommended vet near you.

I would recommend picking up the books I mention, and visiting the House Rabbit Society web site (www.rabbit.org) for their artices as well as the vet references.