Bonded Male trio...and a new arrival

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Laura stone

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May 27, 2019
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Hi everyone, I am new here and I am at my wits end on what to do with my 4 beautiful Male lion heads.

Just to avoid confusion the hierarchy is as follows:

Clive. (Castrated)
Lionel (castrated)
Winston (too young)
Rufus (too young)


We adopted Lionel and Clive when they were 14 weeks. They bonded so well within an hour and had one tiny scrap and that was it. My partner and I thought ourselves so lucky that it took hardly any work to get two males to bond so easily.
They were so happy grooming playing together laying side by side. We thought ‘why do people say rabbits are such hard work?’ How naive!

We then decided to get a third and Winston a tiny white and grey floppy eared bun caught my eye while I was out buying Lionel and Clive some new toys for their pen.

It took a few days for Lionel and Clive to accept him into their gang. Bit of chasing about and some thumping of the feet but again relatively quick in accepting him. Again we thought this is so easy....

Clive asserted himself as the dominant bun quickly. He has always been the one to mount the others and they all seemed unbothered by this. Even after we had them castrated (I hate that word) he was still at it but I read up this is how he asserts himself and also that’s his way of bonding with the others.

Basically, we had a happy trio until we fell in love with Rufus.

We got rufus a separate pen opposite the trio. We thought we would take more time to introduce him to the gang and for them to get used to his scent and visa versa.
Normality lasted about 24 hours before I heard from upstairs a commotion in the bunny area.
Lionel and Clive were tearing chunks of fur out of each other and Clive had bitten Lionel so bad there was a fair amount of blood shed.

We thought this may have been rufus scent that had set the ‘alpha’ Male off and so we put Clive in his own pen still visible to everyone else but separate for their own safety.

This was about a month ago and we have tried introducing Clive to them all again on neutral ground and every single time he will go for Lionel his former best friend so aggressively it’s all it like he won’t stop until he kills him.

The younger two (winston and rufus) are now terrified of him and even the scent of him when we let them out to play can cause them to gently scrap.

We have no idea what to do but Clive’s aggression towards his brothers is so upsetting as he is now on his own. I can’t help but think we made a massive mistake getting a fourth but rufus seems to have bonded with the others with no problem at all.

I read somewhere that rabbits can do this in spring time. If so, why just Clive and not the other three?

Any suggestions on what we can do will be much appreciated.
 
Hi, what a horror story! May I ask what age are all your rabbits and you say Rufus and Winston are too young (for neutering) so they are probably under 3 months. Are you sure none of your younger rabbits is actually a girl? That was my first though it happens all the time I had this happened to me twice! That would explain this change in your male rabbits, but if you are sure they are all four males then there's something else
 
Hi, what a horror story! May I ask what age are all your rabbits and you say Rufus and Winston are too young (for neutering) so they are probably under 3 months. Are you sure none of your younger rabbits is actually a girl? That was my first though it happens all the time I had this happened to me twice! That would explain this change in your male rabbits, but if you are sure they are all four males then there's something else

Thanks so much for your reply ☺️
We were assured that Both the younger ones are boys but we are going to take them all to the vet next week to make sure.
If our youngest is actually a girl it would make completely sense that it’s made Clive go crazy as he was desperate to mate even after being castrated.
 
You can check it yourself here's some pics showing difference between male and female rabbits. Or if you can take clear photo we can help with that.
Before trying to see differences check if they have their testicles dropped already this would be easiest evidence but in some rabbits only can be seen from 4-4,5 months.
What age are all your rabbits?

3617811682_a5a3a46419.jpg


3617811626_3718543518.jpg
 
We have checked Winston, he is definitely a boy. Rufus is so so fluffy we are having trouble getting a good look but have an appointment to take them all to the vet on Monday. In a way I’m hoping Rufus is a girl so that will give us an answer!
 
So maybe there's something else what triggered that just that would be easiest explanation! Keep us informed :)
 
So just an update: all 4 rabbits are definitely boys. We have the youngest two booked in for castration. After that we are going to try bond our youngest Rufus with the aggressor Clive (who today has had a toe amputated due to injuring himself in the hutch bars ) hopefully by the end of it we will have two happy calm pairs of lionhead bunnies pray for us! Xxx
 

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