Laura stone
Active Member
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.
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.
