2 Neutered Males Getting in Random Fights

Gwenniepoo · Jun 4, 2016

Hello! I'm a new rabbit owner and could really use some help. I have 2 neutered brothers, Beans and Gizmo. They are 8 months old and were neutered 2 months ago. I kept them sperated for a couple weeks after they were neutered due to fighting before they were neutered.

Then I bonded them, or so I thought. Did the whole bath tub, on top of washer, and car ride things and now they have their own area together and were getting along super great for several weeks till about 2 weeks ago.

Beans has started chasing Gizmo around. It seems like that's all he does until Gizmo decides to defend himself and then fur starts getting pulled. Gizmo became quite afraid of Beans and would run away if Beans got close, even if there was no sign of aggression from Beans. I couldn't get them to stop so I kept them separate but together with more bonding sessions. After a couple days they did great together again! It's been about a week or so and the same thing just happened again...I was told rabbits would be happier if I got 2...

Nothing in their environment has changed. They have 2 food bowls and 1 water dish. They have free range when I'm home and they have a caged off area of the apartment with "mini" cage inside that they like to use as a litter box. Theres always plenty of Timothy hay and they get salads everyday. I feel like I'm doing everything right so idk what's going on

thanks for the help

Aki · Jun 4, 2016

What happened is that you didn't do your homework before buying the rabbits. Why do I keep seeing threads like that? Two males is the worst combination possible, it's really hard to bond and the chronic fighting will probably never cease - you would have found this information in any article, any books or any thread about rabbits on the Internet. The person you bought them from should have told you as well as it's something that almost NEVER fails, and the fact that they are brothers changes nothing as family means nothing to rabbits.
It's true, rabbits like to live in couple : a neutered male and spayed female couple, even two females is not easy.
You will probably need to house them separately (if you can have them run around together during their free time, it's already something) for the rest of their life.

PS : salad is OK, but you need to introduce more vegetables - rabbits should eat around 8% of their weight in greens (1/3 hard vegetables 2/3 leafy greens) everyday. Please, go to this website and read EVERYTHING, it has almost everything you need to know about rabbits :

http://rabbit.org/category/care/

Nancy McClelland · Jun 4, 2016

Sometimes they'll get along and other times they just don't. We've had a few that would attack anything so they weren't bondable, and have had a pair of males get along just fine. That's life! We had a pair of females that were fine for 7 years and then started fighting for real and had to be separated--once again, life.

Gwenniepoo · Jun 4, 2016

I didn't know they were both males when I got them and neither did the person I got them from and salad = more than just greens. I make them a SALAD, so there's several veggies in it.

Thank you for the link, I will definitely read it

Akzholedent · Jun 5, 2016

Just an FYI to Gwenniepoo: in a lot of countries outside the US, the term "salad" just refers to the greens. I remember being confused when my mom (who's from Germany), would tell me to get the salad out of the fridge.. when we were making a salad! ^_^