help!!!!!!

Question
hi i recently got my rabbits castrated but now i cant put any of them together as they keep fighting. I have tried to bond them but its just not working. The son has even bit his mother and he used to live with her before he got castrated, i just want the 4 of them to live together happy but i don't know what else to do and i hate having to put them on their own. Leanne

Answer
Hi Leanne

You have to go through the whole bonding process.  They can't just be put back together they need to be bonded in an area where none of them have ever been.  I use my bathroom because it is off limits to all rabbits and then I can sit and watch them until they bond.  Sometimes it really does take a great deal of time.  If your bucks were just neutered they will still need a little bit of time to heal.  We don't even start the bonding process until 3 weeks after the surgery.

I am going to attach a few web-sites on bonding.  It is very difficult to bond more than 2 rabbits but many people can do it.  The biggest thing to remember is to provide a place where none of them have lived before.  They are territorial and whichever rabbit has lived there is not going to want any other rabbits in there.  

Mounting and nipping are normal to establish who is going to be the dominant rabbit.  All out fighting and drawing blood is bad and they need to be separated.  When they do this I will separate them and then put them next to each other holding them side by side.  If fights where blood is shed or you can just tell one of them is going to end up injured it is best to stop the process for a few hours and then try again.

I am very proud of you for getting your rabbits fixed because that was a very responsible thing for you to do.  Hopefully together we can get through this but I must warn you that there are rare occasions when more than 1 rabbit wants to be the dominant one.  In that case it is almost nearly impossible to bond them.  

We have a doe that was very successfully bonded with her neutered buck mate, after her surgery to get fixed we were never able to bond them again.  However that is the only time in my many years of bonding rabbits that I have not had a successful outcome.

Please read through these articles.  One even has a phone number you can call for advice.  Please remember it may take weeks.  If after you have tried everything let me know and let me know what they are doing and I will see if I can come up with any other suggestions.


These should give you some good tips.  Since you have 4 if worse comes to worse you may have to do a 2 and 2 bond.  I personally prefer the car ride trick that is mentioned in some of these articles.  I will put them in a carrier before their bonding session and have someone else drive so I can keep an eye on them.  They usually get so scared from the car ride that they lean to each other for comfort and many times by the time you get them home to their neutral territory they forget that they were fighting to begin with.   Also don't be afraid to spray them in the face when a fight is about to break out.  It won't hurt them and usually they will all stop and wash their faces and forget that they were fighting.  I guess the biggest thing is learning the difference between an all out fight and a fight for dominance.

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

http://www.rabbit.org/journal/4-4/tough-bonding.html  (at the end of this one is a section that will tell you when to give up)

http://www.rabbit.org/chapters/san-diego/behavior/bonding-tips.html

http://www.rabbit.org/chapters/san-diego/behavior/expect.html  (there is a phone # here to call for advice)

http://nivoloc.serveftp.net:8081/Newsletter_Archive/2002/June_2002.pdf

Good luck Leanne and I hope your kids will eventually learn that they belong together.

Pam