Ouch!

So I was planning on making a Sophie post today but unfortunately there has been an incident. Sawyer bit me. But it was completely my fault, for some reason the two of them decided to fight this morning and I got in the way. This is the first time I’ve seen that kind of behavior like that from the two of them and hopefully it was just a spat.






They take turns running around like crazy bunnies in the mornings, this morning being Sawyer’s turn. They haven’t started chasing each other yet but Sophie was trying to follow him, got tired of it and plopped down in the floor. Sawyer came over to her and kind of made a move to hump her, she got up and then they just started going in a circle like they were trying to get a chunk of the other. Sophie is faster so I got a hold of Sawyer and held him down to try to break his focus. After she laid down near us and I could tell he was calmed down I let him up and he started licking her head and then ran off. Five minutes later they were at it again, this time they ended up under their cage. At the time I wasn’t thinking of anything but getting them apart because I could see fur was getting pulled out, so I reached under the cage and while trying to reach for Sawyer got in the way of his teeth. I yelped which freaked them both out and I was then able to grab Sophie and but her in the cage. Apparently my yelp was enough to stop the commotion because they got on shelves on the opposite sides of the cage and stayed there until I left. While I was on my way to work Kent called me and told me they were laying next to each other on one of the shelves in their cage like the fight didn't happen.



 

When we introduced the two, Sawyer was almost 11 months old and had been neutered about a month before. Before we brought Sophie home I read everything I could find my hands on about bonding rabbits for more than a month so that I would be prepared for anything. Luckily however it appeared we had a love at first-sight bond. There wasn’t any fighting or indifference. Almost immediately went up to each other and started investigating. After some humping from Sawyer, Sophie soon started grooming his head. I honestly couldn’t believe it, we put them in Sawyer’s play area and there was still some humping but we ended up letting the stay in the play area all day. I wasn’t comfortable leaving them in the same cage overnight so I set up a second cage next to Sawyer ‘s and the next two mornings I got up they were laying next to each other in their separate cages. The third night they stayed together and we haven’t had a bit of trouble from them fighting until this morning.






I’m still not sure what set them off. I haven’t changed their diet except for I forgot to set out parsley at dinner time last night and I usually give them a pinch of oats in the morning but instead of waiting for me to fill up the food bowl they ran out to play. There is the possibility Sophie was hormonal this morning and didn’t want to be humped, which hasn’t happened in a long time. Once Sawyer became the dominate one the humping pretty much stopped. We were planning on getting her fixed in April so if that’s the problem it will be gone soon. Then I read something this morning that a fight could be started by one feeling like it is not getting enough grooming time compared to what it is giving. I’ll just have to keep a close watch on them and hope this was not something major.