Introducing a new rabbit and spaying

Question
I've had my rabbit since February of this year, she was a baby when I got her, and up until the past couple weeks, she was a happy normal easy going rabbit. But recently she has done a 180 with her attitude. She will grunt and charge and pounce us for really no apparent reason. Things like petting, moving her toys, or even picking up her stray droppings (which never used to be an issue), are all of a sudden unforgiveable acts. I was wondering if it could possibly be a puberity stage and if I should have her fixed. And as a side question, I just purchased a new rabbit today and attempted to introduce them in a neutral spot in my house where neither are allowed and almost immediately my older rabbit was intensely aggresive towards the other. Both are female and not that far apart in age. Do you think fixing my older one now would help the situation at all?

Answer
Dear Doug,

Your bunny's aggressive behavior is a sure sign that puberty has arrived, and you happen to have an Alpha Queen who's grouchy because of her hormones!  Although I usually don't like to spay females this young (estrogen is important for skeletal development, and early spays have been implicated in later osteoporosis in some mammal species), if she's being aggressive it might be something that's necessary.  

In the meantime, you can use gentle training techniques to stop her grumpy behavior:

http://www.rabbit.org/faq/sections/aggression.html


Spaying will help the situation, and calm her down some.  How much it will calm her can't be predicted:  some rabbits do a complete 180 back to their old, sweet selves, and some stay grumpy for a while, and need a lot of love and understanding to become sweet and cuddly again.  (Females!  So complicated! ;)  )

It's not surprising that your resident female was hostile to the newcomer, especially in her hormonal state.  Same-sex pairs are harder to bond than opposite sex pairs, but all parties (well--the rabbits do; you don't have to be) need to be spayed/neutered before bonding attempts will be fruitful.

There are some excellent articles on bonding linked here:

http://search.atomz.com/search/?sp-a=00062824-sp00000000&sp-q=bonding&user=enter...

But spaying is a must first:

www.rabbit.org/health/spay.html

You can find a good rabbit vet here:

www.rabbit.org/vets

I hope this helps!

Dana