bunny fights???

Question
Well, the two that escaped was the female (older) dwarf and the male (younger) dwarf. i double checked sexing all of my bunnies. its confirmed. black female dwarf, gray male dwarf, female holland lop. i put the lop into each of the other two's cages. no problems, no fights... they even did some social grooming. then...

I took up your suggestion to see if breeding the female would make her calmer. I put the doe in the buck's cage as is always suggested... they did the typical mating dance then all of a sudden it turned into a terrible terrible scrap.

i couldn't quite tell who instigated but the male might have bitten the female's mouth. its hard to tell. the female won't let me near her. or if she does, she's absolutely frozen in fear. she seems to be guarding a bit too which makes suspect an injury. after this, she's all of a sudden very very timid (and she used to be the most pronouced). i feel very very bad... i've raised these three since they've been weaned and am very attached. i've been doing all the homework i could but nothing is matching up. even the breeder that gave them to me is a bit confused.

its confusing too since they are all a month apart. d-female > d-male > f-lop... *sighs* i'm not sure what to do but i'm not letting them play together anymore thats for sure.

is there any precautions i need for a possible wound? infection? etc? should i get any of the bunnies bred to let them blow off some steam?

what is the best course of action in your judgment?

thanks so much for your absolutely most timely response.

you're faster than any of the other experts i've asked.

most thankful!

ben



-------------------------------------------
The text above is a follow-up to ...

-----Question-----
Hi Ms. Sharp,

Thanks again for all your previous help w/ my questions about my bunnies.

Tonight, something very strange happened... as I was cleaning cages, the two dwarves escaped their cages (my mistake) and were running around my apartment as usual. All of a sudden I heard a bunch of paw pattering -- when I finally saw what was happening, the two of them were fighting and the fur was flying everywhere. I separated them immediately.

Previous to that, I caught the "female" black dwarf mounting the female lop. It was confusing to me because I stopped the mounting and saw that her genitals were protruding a bit more than before. I'm wondering if I mistakened her and she is actually a male.

But when I compare genitals to the gray male dwarf, his penis is well protruding when I do the sex test, however, the female one "looks" like pictures you can find on the internet. It does protrude but it seems more hollow.

I'm at a loss and absolutely confused.

Any idea why they were fighting? They weren't in cages so I'm not sure about the territory thing.

Any chance that the black female is actually a male?

PLEASE HELP!!!

worried...

Ben

p.s. thanks for reading mother goose. i know this was long.
-----Answer-----
I think what your problem is that you have a female who is wanting bred. Some does get agressive when in strong heat and they attack you and other animals, and when placed in with a buck readily breed. Usually breeding will calm one down, but if you don't want to breed her, then keeping her separate from all others and making sure she is around no other rabbit at all will probably fix your problem. If she looks like the pictures, then she is a female. When doing the sex test, look at her vagina. If it is dark red/purpleish then it is that she is wanting bred. Not sure which ones you had to escape, but if it were the two females, then likely the one in heat was trying to breed the other which caused the fight. And if it were male and female, then the female was probaly trying to breed the male and they were fighting because she was doing it wrong.
Samantha

Answer
That doe really has me puzzled too. I cannot understand why she is fighting that buck, unless she is possibly bred??? Was she in with the buck before all this fighting began? If so then you may be expecting babies. I would do a pregnancy check on the agressive doe to see if this is possible.
www.islandgems.net/palpating.html
Watch her eating habits and keep an eye on her attitude. If things get worse or she stops eating/drinking then you should probably have her at a vet. Sometimes when fighting they can hurt themselves. Check her over really good too for cuts and scratches.
Samantha