Male rabbit barbering female

Question
Hello,
I am trying to bond my two pet bunnies, but I am having some trouble.  My male (that was neutered almost two months ago) bites my female on the face, side, and rump.  (She has been recently spayed and is around the same age as the male.)  I have also caught him pulling the fur from her side.  I aways try to stop him before he does it, but I don't know WHY he's doing this.  I keep them seperated most of the time, except for their bunny "dates".  The female is very shy and will put her head down whenever the male approaches her.  If I don't stop it, she will eventually get fed up with the biting and run away.  When she does, he chases her around until I break it up.  He hasn't tried to mount her, even if he did I wouldn't let him because of her recent spay.  Aside from the biting and hair pulling, they don't show any other aggressive behavior toward each other.  Any help would be greatly appreciated.  Thank you

                                         Christina

Answer
Hi Christina,

first, are you sure he is not just grooming or face, or does he actually nip?  Some bunnies seem to try to groom but kind of bite/nip the fur, they just don't groom the same way others do.  I think some never learn certain skills and it hinders their ability to bond properly.

Much of what you are describing is not fighting.  It is part of establishing dominance.  This is the hair pulling, chasing, grooming and presenting to be groomed back, and the mounting.  This needs to occur because they can't become friends until dominance is figured out.  Two things will happen, either they figure it out, and then they can the bonding process, or they never figure it out and it eventually happens that it actually progresses into a fight.

This is what happened in our case.  Our gal never figured out how to bond, she had been a solo rabbit the first two years of her life, had a couple bad bonding experiences before we adopted her, and she couldn't bond with our male who was very nice.  eventually she would get frustrated with him and start biting him, and after a year he wound up biting back, neither backed down and they started fighting.

Now it is not the end of the world if they can't be bonded.  Trust me if one doesn't want to bond, they will be much happier and you will have uninjured rabbits keeping them separate.  For some rabbits all they need is seeing another rabbit across from them, or being able to interact with another rabbit through a gate (different play places in the house).  Not all rabbits need or want another rabbit.  If they have spent a lot of their early years by themselves they may prefer human contact to be enough.

The hair pulling and chasing is not fighting.  Fighting is ears back, growling, lunging for the face and/or belly with teeth, both rabbits tussling around on the floor with each other.  That is fighting and must be broken up immediately to prevent injury or death.  In this case you just put your hands in (and don't care if you get bit) and grab one of them and pick them up out of the melee.

If a fight breaks out, you should wait at least a week or two before trying to evne think about putting them together again. If the next time they fight again, I would permanently separate them.  One bunny may not actually like the other.  Rabbits pick their friends, and one may not like the other, or they may both not like each other.  Bonding is useless in these cases, at least with these two particular rabbits.

Write back anytime.  Lee