I thought baby bunnies got along with older buns at least until they hit puberty

[Tweetiepy]

I thought I heard that you could put baby bunnies together or put a baby with an older bunny and unless the older bun was territorial they should get along fine until the baby hit adolescence.

I'm wondering if my supposedly 10 week old male bun Popcorn isn't older than was first claimed… He knows that Peaches (10 month old fixed male) is nearby and he can smell him through their separated areas. Peaches seems indifferent to him, he'll sniff through the bars but will happily groom himself and seems just curious. Popcorn however seems to follow Peaches through the bars aggressively, if Peaches is nearby, he'll jump up and push his nose through the bars trying to get to him. Last night I wanted to see who was the aggressor as their caged in runs were almost touching - Peaches sniffed curiously and Popcorn pushed his nose through the bars & growled, grunted or roared (he's a lionhead so that could happen) anyway, some sort of noise came out of him. Peaches pushed his nose through in response and then both seemed to be making throaty noises. Popcorn seems to be the aggressor at this point. I didn,t notice tails or ears, I just wanted to separate them before they managed to touch & bite. Peaches backed away no problem, but Popcorn seemed to be saying " You want a piece of me? - Come back and fight!" Peaches looked pretty shook up after that, and I had to pet him to calm him down. Popcorn, however, seemed ready for round 2 - he was jumping back and forth near the grids & trying to get through. When Popcorn was pumped like this last time, I tried to pet him to calm him down and he lunged & nipped my socked feet - he got a little yelp for doing that and when he did this a second time he got a head-down - that seemed to work.

Peaches is fixed and at the start had the territorial poops with the addition of the new bunny, he's calmed down quite a bit lately for the poops and is a big fuzzy ball of "pet-me" lovingness. Popcorn can come out for 2 minutes and pepper the area with poop. I'm planning to get him fixed as soon as I can and not a minute longer (come on testicles!) but I'm hoping this otherwordly aggresiveness will stop - he seems overly aggressive, I thought small bunnies were more passive than that - could he be older than his 10 weeks? I can't believe a bunny could be so territorial at such a young age, I heard they can live together in peace for quite a long time before their hormones kick in. Will this pass with the fixing? Or will I be stuck with two separate bunnies, which sucks since I got the second so he could bond with Peaches and they could be friends.

 

[JadeIcing]

It all depends the bunny some show signs early.

 

[Nancy McClelland]

The only thing you can count on is that they will continue to surprise you.

 

[TinysMom]

Each rabbit is an individual. I've had mild-mannered rabbits at that age - and I've had some that were aggressive too and I wouldn't put them with another rabbit.

It wasn't their age that made the difference - it was the strength of their personality - even at that age. And it was also just their personality in general....they had a personality that later on went one to be one of being a dominant rabbit.

 

[tamsin]

Two babies (under 12 weeks) will probably go in together on neutral territory with little bother. After that your getting into hormone territory. An adult and a baby you'll probably have the same issues as introducing two adults. It's an unknown rabbit invading their area. You might find the reaction is different on neutral territory.