rabbits suddenly fighting with each other

Question
We have a male and female rabbit (mom/son) who have always gotten along great but are now suddenly fighting with each other. The male is about 6 months and old has been fixed but not before he got his mom pregnant.  She had 1 baby a few weeks ago.  We usually keep them in a large pen where they are together all the time but due to some work that needed to be done on our apartment, we moved them to smaller cages temporarily(mom with new baby and the male by himself and the cages were right next to each other) but we always let them out to run around the house together a few times a day. Everything had been fine until yesterday morning, we let them out as usual and the 2 adults started chasing each other around and fighting. It was hard to tell which was the aggresser, they seemed to be taking turns, but it looked like maybe the male. We seperated them again and later that day brought them out together again.  They seemed ok at first but after a while they started up again and were really going at it, screaming and everything until we got them apart. This time it seemed like the female was the 1st to strike and start the fight. We put 1 in the cage but they were still trying to fight each other through the bars, neither has showed any aggression towards the baby but I was afraid he was going to get trampled as they fought around him.  
We would really like to know what it causing this behavior and what can be done to stop it.  We plan to give the new baby to a friend once it is old enough but we love our rabbits and don't want to have to get rid of either of them but we cannot have them fighting like this. Is the female mad because the male isn't interested in sex anymore, even though it hasn't seemed to bother her that much up to this point? Is the male reaching maturity and now he wants to try and be the dominant one? Neither of them has been acting differently towards the baby, me or my boyfriend, just each other. What can we do? Help

Answer
Hi Maureen

There are a few things that can be considered in this situation.  First being that there is another rabbit present and yes it is still a baby but the mom is going to be somewhat protective of the baby and the dad is going to show signs of jealousy if he can't be with her.  Second you said you recently had to change their living situations around.  This is very stressful for rabbits.  Often times they will go off of food for a few days and become generally depressed.  In this case it seems as though they are taking it out on each other.

My suggestion to you is that you keep them separated until the baby has gone to its new home.  After this then you should be able to re-bond them.  It will take time since they have been apart for so long.  For the best interest of the new baby and its safety I believe that is your only solution.  Let them come out to play but do it at separate times or in separate rooms.

After the baby has moved to its new home then try to introduce the other 2 back together slowly.  They will either immediately fall back in love or you will have to work with them.  The best place to bring them together again is in a neutral territory.  Bring along a spray bottle and if they start to get to aggressive spray them in the face.  This will make both of them stop for a face washing.  It will be more difficult to bond them now than it was the first time.  The new baby could have caused an overwhelming amount of emotions.  I am going to give you a site on bonding so that when the time comes you can use it for information.

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

This article has really great suggestions.  The best experiences I have had are with the car ride trick.  For some reason when I get them back after the ride they seem to feel like they are closer.  That the stress of the car ride has brought them to each other for comfort.

I won't tell you it is going to be easy but it can be done.  If you feel like your doe is being overly aggressive it would not hurt to have her spayed.  Some experts will tell you that the incidence of uterine and ovarian cancer can be as high as 80% in doe's that aren't spayed.  It is just something to consider.

Let me know if you need anymore help or if you need help when its time to re-bond them.

Thanks

Pam