I need a crash course in bunny body language PLEASE!!!

[Alanna]

I've read everything I can find online and nothing describes what my bunnies are doing. Bunny interpreters please!!!
We brought home two 3.5 month old rescue bunnies, brothers from the same litter, 2 weeks before Christmas and we've been slowly getting them used to their new home and being patient and not having too many expectations, etc etc etc. But there are just so many things different with them from our last house rabbit!
I'll just mention before I start that they were both desexed very young, which puzzles me even more regarding their behaviour.
1. The brothers still don't seem to have worked out their own heirarchy. They are perfectly friendly to each other, flop down side by side, even do the odd bit of brief mutual grooming, but the mounting dance goes back and forth and back and forth. There's no aggression, but neither will accept the other's dominance.
2. One of them is definitely much more dominant towards us though! The more extroverted of the two will jump up on the couch where I'm sitting and start head butting me as if to say "move!" And if I don't move, he will bite me! And yes, they've been fed, and yes they've got clean water and lots of hay and interesting toys. He will come to where I am am and headbutt me, so I think maybe he wants attention and go to pat him but he immediately moves away. Again he approaches me, I think he wants a pat, but when I put my hand out he will either go to bite me or engage in a series of strong headbutts like he's some sort of goat. I tried pushing my hand back gently against his head to say 'no buddy, I'm the boss in this house' but he just doesn't back down and headbutts all the more, and if I don't back off he bites. If I leave the couch, he happily settles in as if to say he's the king of this castle.
3. The same rabbit also seems to be doing dominating or territory marking droppings and urinating. They've had their litter boxes and routine long enough now and been using them consistently for us to know they are litter trained, and neither of them ever have any accidents. Except the dominant one. He will jump up to wherever I am sitting and refuse to let me touch him, but poos there. He even urinated on the couch. Same thing with the dog. He goes into the dogs bed and either poos or urinates there! The poor dog doesn't know what is going on.
4. Neither of the rabbits are at all afraid of us or the dog anymore at all, they will happily flop down right next to us and even in the dogs bed with the dog, nothing seems to bother them at all. And yet they don't seem to want anything to do with us. They will beg for food and come bounding over when we feed them, but they will never let us pat them. They just calmly move just beyond reach and keep doing what they were doing. They are not afraid of us but they also seem to see no value in our company. We're just the staff. Our last rabbit would snuggle up with us and loved being petted, and just generally liked to be near us wherever we were. Is it just because there's two of them, they have each other so they don't need any companionship from us?
Please help me to understand all this bunny communication and also how I can tell them:
a) you are not the boss of this house, and
b) we'd love to give you some love if you'd just give us a chance?

Many thanks, bunny whisperers!

 

[Hermelin]

They are pumped with hormones and are in a hard period. They are going from babies to adult bunnies, so they will be a bit wild and bossy. It’s common with marking the house and fights can break out between the brothers.

So both brothers need to be neutered for them to work living togheter. Also for not hurting eachother and stop being litter trained.

Also being two of them they might not have fully bonded with you which makes them not want to be petted. They have trust but not bonded, also being two of them they don’t need as much attentions from you.

 

[zuppa]

Hi, if they were 3,5 months around Christmas they are about 4 months now, are you sure they were neutered and at what age is so? Because usually they take rabbits for neutering from 4,5-6 months as their testicles are still not there before that, but it is individual. Honestly I would be surprised if they were 3.5 months old and already neutered. Your rabbits sound to me like they just intact growing rabbits tbh

 

[SimbaAndFlora]

I think one of the reasons why they’ve not worked out their hierarchy is that they don’t trust you or the environment. Even the closest rabbits will struggle with hierarchy when moved somewhere new. I would suggest you spend more time bonding with them. When you pet them give them treats. Smear some banana on your hand for them to lick off. Spending time with you together will help them bond with each other and with you but they’ll never figure out the hierarchy until they can trust the alpha bunny: you.

 

[Alanna]

Thank you everybody for your replies, it is a most frustrating situation! I agree they are behaving like un-neutered rabbits but they ARE neutered, I have vet certificates for each of them saying so!!! I know males are usually neutered around 8-12 weeks old, so I assume that's when these guys were done. Is it possible the operation didn't work? I mean, testicles are not exactly hard to miss are they???
Anyway, I will try your suggestion SimbaAndFlora and try to bond with them some more. Popcorn is a little hesitant, but will eat treats out of our hands and allow himself to be petted whilst doing so, he will even jump into our laps to eat a treat. But Pepper is very aggressive, not only will he climb all over us to get at the treat but if it's not happening fast enough or the treat has run out, he will bite our fingers. He is EXTREMELY motivated by food. I do try and spend as much time as possible just sitting near their enclosure when they're in there and I sit for ages on the floor until my bum hurts! They always come up and have a snif but then quickly move on. They just don't seem interested in us for anything other than food.
It's interesting Hermelin you say they have trust but have not bonded, what's the missing step to get them to bond??? Is it just a matter of time?
Thank you everyone, I'm trying hard to understand my little fluff balls.

 

[bunnylove2024]

its hard when one rabbit shows dominance... in order to show that you love them reward good behavior like using the litter box, letting you pet them, or being friendly. I have one girl who was always trying to become a boss but after lots of TLC and positive reinforcement, she became the biggest cuddler! They are both young and have lots of time to work it out but until then do your best... don't give up also because their parts were done developing that could have something to do with it.

 

[Hermelin]

Thank you everybody for your replies, it is a most frustrating situation! I agree they are behaving like un-neutered rabbits but they ARE neutered, I have vet certificates for each of them saying so!!! I know males are usually neutered around 8-12 weeks old, so I assume that's when these guys were done. Is it possible the operation didn't work? I mean, testicles are not exactly hard to miss are they???
Anyway, I will try your suggestion SimbaAndFlora and try to bond with them some more. Popcorn is a little hesitant, but will eat treats out of our hands and allow himself to be petted whilst doing so, he will even jump into our laps to eat a treat. But Pepper is very aggressive, not only will he climb all over us to get at the treat but if it's not happening fast enough or the treat has run out, he will bite our fingers. He is EXTREMELY motivated by food. I do try and spend as much time as possible just sitting near their enclosure when they're in there and I sit for ages on the floor until my bum hurts! They always come up and have a snif but then quickly move on. They just don't seem interested in us for anything other than food.
It's interesting Hermelin you say they have trust but have not bonded, what's the missing step to get them to bond??? Is it just a matter of time?
Thank you everyone, I'm trying hard to understand my little fluff balls.

They dosen’t sound like neutered boys. At 8 weeks they don’t have any testicles to neuter. One of my bucks only got them at 8 months old while my other buck had them at 4 months, so both was older than 12 weeks (3 months). Bucks often get neutered around 4-6 months old, because younger it becomes risky and often their testicles haven’t dropped yet. My other buck before was also around 4-5 months old when his testicles dropped down. So none of my bucks could had been neutered at 12 weeks old.

So either they are older than 3,5 months or not neutered. I would recommend to take a look under them to see, just to be on the safer side. So you can rule it out. I just found it weird they was neutered around 12 weeks or younger.

Because their behavior seem a lot like bucks pumped with hormones. During their teenage period. Because then it would explain why they haven’t decided whose the boss yet. Or if they have been neutered it takes 2 months until all hormones calms down and get out from their systems, and around 4 weeks to heal.

Have gone through two neuters with my bucks, so I know how they behaved like crazed teenage bunnies. Specially the buck that was neutered at 2 years old, because I had to wait with him.

Myself haven’t fully bonded with one of my bucks, he still have trust issues and I had him since he was 5 months old and he will turn two this year. But I can cuddle with him and handle him. So his bond have I been building up slowly.

You will just need to spend time and bribe them, don’t reward the bad behaviors and if the nip stay your ground. Otherwise you will learn your bunnies if I nip they will move, maybe that’s what they want or to get your attention. That’s just a bad behavior, my doe was the same way. Nip to get attention but she later learned to not do it after a few months of training.

 

[CuddlyCocoa]

Rabbits can have differing personalities. We had one who had little interest in us touching him or being near him much and one who is super loving and usually wanting to be right next to us. It has been interesting.

 

[Preitler]

Here, it's common practice to neuter that young, nothing unusual. It has some advantages when they never go through puberty.
Anyway, I have one doe, 6yo, that refuses to being touched. And most of her offspring inherited that feature to some degree. She's cool, not skittish, I just must not touch her.

 

[Liung]

Every bunny is different and some just aren’t affectionate. Lahi was super bossy, loved to come over and poke and prod at me, climb all over me, but the moment I touched him his ears would flatten and I’d get the worst evil eye. HOW DARE YOU LAY HANDS ON MY ESTEEMED PERSON. 13 years and only one person was ever allowed to pet him. Touching happened on his terms or not at all.

However ultimately it sounds to me like your buns are trying to claim everything and anything as territory. The peeing on the couch and dog beds are an attempt to make things smell like them. Pee marking happens, even when you’ve had them for ages. I tend to give any pee spots a scrub to ensure they don’t stain, but I won’t go full on deep clean—basically I clean it enough that I can’t see it or smell it, but they can still smell it. If I deep clean a pee spot, often it just reappears shortly. Because they want the space to smell like them!

But I do find that once they’ve lived there long enough it smells like them and they don’t need to urine mark. Mine most often now just leave some poops around. I am okay with this because it’s a good health check, both for if there’s no new poops (GI Stasis?!) or if there’s unusually more poops (stressed out?!) or if the poops have weird shapes.

I also think that your one boy shouldn’t be allowed to chase you off the couch. He’s trying to claim it exclusively as his territory, which, buddy... he can learn to share.

When it comes to behaviour correction, punishment generally won’t work on its own. You have to teach them not only what not to do, but what to do. Delilah starts chewing on something she shouldn’t? She gets put in her hay box. Litter training works the same way, if you catch them going somewhere they shouldn’t, immediately move them to the litter box. Redirect inappropriate behaviour into acceptable alternatives. You don’t have to “punish” beyond that, because if you’re picking them up, just being picked up is aversive enough to serve as positive punishment.

How to apply that to your buns, I’m not 100% sure. But it’s good to understand the underlying theories of behaviour modification. Right now, you’re reinforcing his biting behaviour. If he wants something, and his head butting doesn’t work, and he switches to biting, and then gets what he wants, he may eventually start skipping the head butting and going straight to biting. Consider either giving him what he wants before he escalates, showing him a gentler alternative to getting what he wants (Delilah learned to call us into her room by smashing her water dish... even when it was empty. I’m now going to try training her to use a bell instead) or in the case of trying to kick you off the couch, teaching him that he can’t get what he wants. Delilah used to be so bad at taking her meds, once she even peed on me. I sucked it up, ignored it, and kept going. She never peed on me again; if I’d stopped, I am sure she would have peed on me every single time. Like a toddler throwing a tantrum, you can’t reward bad behaviour and give them what they want if the way they are asking is inappropriate.

Basically, try to preempt him before the biting happens, but once it does happen do not allow him to think that the biting worked. Whether that means putting on something that protects you from the biting and allows you to immediately ignore him and be unmoveable, or if that means picking him up and removing him from the couch, that’s up to you. But don’t teach him that biting is the best way to get what he wants.

 

[JBun]

I would still check to make sure they were neutered, and see if there are testicles down there or not. If you don't find anything then it's just a behavioral/dominance issue. Which means you will need to establish that you are the boss. There might be some helpful suggestions in the link below. But I would suggest thoroughly researching any suggestions, to make sure they are appropriate and safe to try, before attempting anything. But there are things that can definitely be tried by using rabbits own body language. Like thumping or letting out an 'eep' or 'yelp', then turning your back to the rabbit(making sure he sees).
https://wabbitwiki.com/wiki/Aggressive_rabbits
http://language.rabbitspeak.com/

To spend time with them I would take them to a small area like a bathroom or xpen set up, preferably someplace they are pretty unfamiliar with. The smaller area ensures they have to stay in close proximity to you. What this does is ensure they have to interact with you. This is how you bond rabbits to other rabbits, so that's essentially what you are doing. Forming a bond with your rabbit.

The other option is taking one rabbit at a time to a small area to spend time with. The separation can cause them to feel a little less secure, which in turn can help you to be on better footing, particularly the bossy boy. But this does possibly run the risk of affecting the bond with each other. It could completely mess up their bond. So this needs to be seriously considered first before deciding whether or not this is the best course to take.

 

[helena]

Some Buns just aren't snuggle type. If the bunny doesn't want to get petted now just work on sitting close and movingly slowly around bunny. Also urinating on things is just what male animals do. You could also (if you haven't) move the hay and food bins by the litter box so the bunny will spend more time siting on the litter box and any undo pooping outside the box will hopefully cease. Another thing you could try is to hand feed your rabbit treats. If you think he might bite you when you hand feed him, you could wear a glove but make sure the glove has your scent on it. Hope this helped.

 

[Alanna]

Thank you so much everybody for all your helpful suggestions, you've given me many different ideas to try. Every bunny's different and we really do love our two little guys, even if some things are lost in translation. I mostly want to learn how to say to them in bunny language: I am the boss, you don't need to worry about anything, let's all just chill out together.