# Please Help. My rabbits won't stop fighting.



## Luke1982 (Dec 4, 2010)

Hi

We have three male rabbits named Jenson, Lewis, and Schumy. We've had them since they were around two months old and as far as I know they're all from the same litter. Lewis is the largest, followed by Jenson and then Schumy, although the size difference is not as great as it used to be. It also seems that Jenson is top bunny, despite not being the largest. Jenson is generally pretty laid back but is always up to mischief and isn't scared of anything (not even my parents dog). Lewis likes to run laps around the room at full tilt in sudden bursts of activity follwed by periods of barely moving at all, and Shumy is always on the go and never seems to rest at all. Lewis and Schumy are much more timid than Jenson is though.

They were neutered two months ago and prior to that they all got on really well apart from one little scuffle about 2-3 weeks before we had them done. I managed to catch them early before it got too bad and since then they have lived in separate cages about a foot away from each other.

After they had healed from being neutered it seemed that they had calmed down a lot and they were getting on really well. It got to the point where we were considering letting them have the run of the room all day even if we weren't at home because they could be left alone for hours and woulld be perfectly fine. They would all would cuddle up to each other and things were really good. But then about a month ago, they were out in their room as they normally would be and my girlfriend and I were in the living room watching TV when we heard a lot of commotion coming from the next room. I ran in to see what was going on and they were all jumping over each other and tharashing at each other with their feet and fur was flying all over the place. It seemed that it was mostly Jenson vs Lewis but with Schumy getting a few cheap shots in when he could.

After that I obviously couldn't trust them to be left in the room alone at all. But at least that enabled me to see how it all started. Suprisingly it seemed that Schumy was starting it by chasing Lewis and try to rip out chunks of fur from his bum and Lewis was trying to stay out of his way and seemed very wary of Schumy, if not scared. It rarely broke out into a full fight but occaisionally it would. Jenson didn't even seem interested in what was going on most of the time, but every now and then if things got a little carried away he would run up to them and start running around and jumping over Schumy, which would stop the fight because they would both cower to Jenson but then it would often would make schumy even more determined to attack Lewis once Jenson had gone away. I think this may have been how it would escalate into a full fight if I wasn't there to stop it, but obviously I don't know how it started because I didn't see it begin.

I found that Lewis and Jenson would get on fine together and Jenson and Schumy would get on fine together. But Lewis and Schumy would not.

We tried different things to stop them from fighting, such as taking them to more neutral environments (I even put them in the bath together (it was empty dont worry  )) and eventually things calmed down. Schumy and Lewis will now lay next to each other and Schumy will groom Lewis. So I thought we'd cracked it. How wrong we were!

I'm not sure whether this has anything to do with it but Schumy would only groom Lewis and hardly ever would he groom Jenson. Whereas before Jenson and Schumy would often lay together (but I cant remember if any grooming took place or not).

Anyway. My confidence was growing again and they were starting to be let out for longer and longer and we were beginning to leave them unsupervised for short periods of time again. But then two days ago Lewis and Jenson started fighting. There doesn't really seem to be a pattern as to who starts it and this time the fights seem much more brutal. They're rolling around the room really going at each other and its hard to catch them and break it up sometimes. So sometimes they're fighting for a good few seconds before I can get to them. Luckily there have been no injuries so far but if I cant get this under control I think there soon will be. I've tried similar kinds of things that I did last time but nothing seems to be working. They will even fight when in completely neutral territory.

Why do they keep fighhting? If anyone can give me some advice I would be most grateful beacause I'm running out of ideas. In particular, has anyone had experience in bonding three male rabbits? Or is it never going to happen?

I'm hoping to build them a permanent new home out in the garden with a really big run when the weather warms up, but if I can't trust them to be left alone then I don't know what I'm going to do.

Sorry this was a bit of an essay.

Thanks

Luke


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## Paws&Claws (Aug 29, 2009)

Make sure they are all neutered and you have waited about 6 weeks after the neutering to ensure the hormones have calmed down.

Then read this:
http://www.petforums.co.uk/rabbits/106174-bunny-bonding-diary.html

Hopefully something on there might help you  xx


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## Guest (Dec 5, 2010)

When you start the bonding do you do it on neutral territory?


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## Luke1982 (Dec 4, 2010)

Perhaps not entirely neutral. I usually just let them out of the cages in the room that the cages are in. But they've got on really well in that room in the past. It seems that one minute they're all happy bunnies and then the next they can't stand each other.

We took Jenson and Lewis upstairs today to a room that they've never been in before (well it was a room that Lewis has never been in before but Jenson has been in there two or three times about a week ago because he can now get up the stairs) and they still started to fight.


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## Luke1982 (Dec 4, 2010)

Would it be a bad idea to separate all three of them for a while (i.e. put their cages in separate rooms so they can't even see each other) until they forget about the fights (how long would that take?) and then starting completely from scratch at trying to bond them?


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## squeaker (Nov 29, 2010)

Let them all still see each other is my advice. When the hormones have really died down, you'll have more chance of reintroducing them than if they 'forget' each other.

If you can let them safely have supervised exercise together in the meantime, great. This will help more so.

I think it's just time on this one. Ultimately, space will help. Lots of it. Distraction too. lots of things to do.

You can only do so much. Hopefully it will work in the end.


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## Guest (Dec 5, 2010)

Personally I would give them a couple more weeks to make sure al the hormones of gone and then once you think it is safe to start bonding them on completely neutral territory.


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