Male new foundland dwarf intentionally pulls out fur of female while humping

Rabbits Online Forum

Help Support Rabbits Online Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

fofofina23

Member
Joined
Oct 27, 2022
Messages
11
Reaction score
1
I'm trying to start bonding a male and a female rabbit, it's more introductions and pre bonding untill I get them neutered but they do hump as expected. Originally it was just him humping her ( us of course taking measures to prevent pregnancy)
Albert has been pulling out Maude's hair while humping since day one. It looks painful, she doesn't usually mind but I feel terrible. Is there any way to make him more gentle? Will neutering prevent this? It's about 5 seconds in when he starts intentionally pulling her hair out.
Now we got humping circles though he's much more determined and he just keeps pulling out hair.
 
They need to be kept separated. It doesn't do any good to attempt bonding at this point, as they are acting solely on hormones, and you're risking your female getting pregnant, if she isn't already. It takes seconds for the male to be successful. If he's humping her, even if he hasn't fallen off, he could have still made successful contact.

Get them spayed/neutered, wait the 4-8 weeks for hormones to fade, then go through the proper bonding process. But just know, even then there are no guarantees they'll successfully bond. Rabbits can be particular about what bun they like and don't like.

https://wabbitwiki.com/wiki/Spaying_and_neutering_rabbits
https://rabbit.org/veterinarians/
While you're waiting for when you can attempt bonding again, I would suggest doing some reading up on the different bonding techniques and also rabbit body language. It's very important to understand the signs of escalating aggression, so you know when to intervene, before fighting and injuries can occur.

https://rabbitsindoors.weebly.com/bonding-bunnies.html
http://cottontails-rescue.org.uk/information/bonding-bunnies/
https://wabbitwiki.com/wiki/Bonding_rabbits_together
http://language.rabbitspeak.com/
 
... ( us of course taking measures to prevent pregnancy)
Would be interesting to hear what you think are preventive measures once he's on her.

As been said, they need to be seperated. And kept seperated for about 6 weeks after his neuter. What you do now is not bonding, but letting him pester her, ingraining a bahaviour in him while, I guess, really frustrating him. And if she's of age (starting at 3-4 months) she might be pregnant already, would get her spayed right now - but tell the vet what happened.

Some tufts of fur really are just the tip of the iceberg here ;)
 
Would be interesting to hear what you think are preventive measures once he's on her.

As been said, they need to be seperated. And kept seperated for about 6 weeks after his neuter. What you do now is not bonding, but letting him pester her, ingraining a bahaviour in him while, I guess, really frustrating him. And if she's of age (starting at 3-4 months) she might be pregnant already, would get her spayed right now - but tell the vet what happened.

Some tufts of fur really are just the tip of the iceberg here ;)
Ok makes sense, the measures taken were blocking his or her parts with our hands and not letting him hump where he could enter. So when they would jump it would be on the side usually. I am curious to know if the hair pulling hurts her anyways and if it will go away when we get him fixed
 
Yes, the hair pulling can hurt because ripping out a chunk of fur can't be very comfortable, and sometimes they get a hold of the skin with the fur, so that would obviously hurt some. The hair pulling usually goes away after neutering and 4-8 weeks for hormones to fade, as he will no longer be so inclined to hump her once the hormones are no longer driving the behavior. Some humping between both rabbits can occur because it's also dominance behavior in rabbits, but much less happens than when it's hormonally driven, and so very little to no hair pulling will happen with just the dominance humping, as the hair pulling is from him trying to get a good hold on her to mate with her.
 

Latest posts

Back
Top