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Aggressive Spayed Rabbit

22 10:05:18

Question
Hi, I'm from Singapore.

2 years back me and my wife adopted a female rabbit(breed unknown) from the SPCA and she was certified as being spayed.

In the beginning she was very docile and friendly to the point that we could hug her and play with her. But after a few months she became rather unfriendly and kept growling when we approach her or feed her. She had a male rabbit as a companion and he did not fight with her or anything.

We are rather puzzled as usually rabbits are less aggressive after sterilisation due to lowered hormone levels but it's not the case here.. Would love some insights from you.

Regards,
Daniel

Answer
Hi Daniel,

couple reasons, you'll need to figure out which apply.

With lower hormone levels cage aggression and such go down with females.  They are litterpan trainable.  However, with lowered hormone levels, their real personalities are able to come out and not be 'over-ridden' by a hormonal tidal wave.

What I suspect, is that possibly she may have had a rough prior life before the SPCA.  If you can get some background info as to whether she suffered any abuse and/or neglect and if the people who did it had any habits (ie smoking, wore perfume, etc) it would be helpful. Because if you smoke and the abuser smoked, you smelling like that is going to trigger her to be defensive.  

If you or your wife (not saying you did) ever physically disciplined her (little whack on the face etc) that one act can totally break any trust you had developed up to that point.

Another thing it could be is even being spayed her adrenaline gland might be producing higher than normal hormone levels.

A further thing is if you can go back to the time where you noticed the change and think about what was going on in the house around that time.  There is usually a reason for behavior changes. You don't say if the male rabbit friend of hers came with her or you paired them up later.  

Also, lots of females don't like hands reaching into their cages while they are in there, if this occurs mostly when this scenario is occurring, she's just more protective of her 'warren' - that's what they regard their cage as, a very personal space.  Better when possible to do cleaning and maintenance when she's out exercising.

Further she could be being either protective of her buddy.  She could also be experiencing 'false pregnancy' where a spayed female after copulation has hormonal changes but usually after a couple weeks the false pregnancy is over.

So it could potentially be a lot or more than one thing at play.  If you think of any potentials or can expand on her history and give more details that could be helpful, write back.