Neutered male bunny still territorial and aggressive

[memoryofwings]

My boyfriend and I have a male bunny, Loots. When we got him at 4 months old, he was very aggressive and territorial, and would try to bite whenever either of us needed to get in his cage to clean it or to feed him. We decided then to have him neutered hoping he'd mellow down.

He was very quiet and wouldn't move very much the day he was neutered and maybe the next day or two, but then he returned to his pre-neuter behavior....

He's 10 months now and we have not been able to calm him down in any way. He grunts really loudly, tries to bite us, and runs around in his cage frantically whenever we put our hands inside the cage.

We also have a 9 month old male bunny, Stills, who hasn't been neutered yet. We have him in a play pen right now next to Loot's cage. We tried to bond them with no success and plan to bond them again once Stills is neutered. They don't get hostile, though, with their cages so close to each other.

Anyway, is there a reason why neutering Loots hasn't calmed his hormones down? He doesn't like to be handled either and looks really scared whenever we need to pick him up. Is there anything we can do to change his behavior or do we just need to get used to and work around it?

 

[Momto3boys]

How long has it been since he's been neutered? It can take up to 4 weeks for the hormones to calm down.

Or it could just be Loots' personality.

 

[Nancy McClelland]

Some take a lot of time and never fully become accustomed to people--even ones that were handled a lot as kits. Mr B (Beelzebub) took almost four years before he was safe to handle--of course, he was a rescue and we don't know what his life was like previously. Time, patience, and bribery have worked for us quite well.

 

[tamsin]

Although behaviour like that is often related to hormones it can also be learnt behaviour eg he's scared of humans and has learnt that behaviour makes you back off. Rabbits that are aggressive to human won't necessarily treat other rabbits the same way however you need to be very careful with introductions as males (even neutered) are the pairing most likely to fight.

You may find time and retraining will help with the behaviour. What set up do you have? I would suggest that you put on some tough boots eg wellies to protect your legs and then stand in the corner of the pen for 10 minutes at tea time. Repeat this until he just ignores your presence. Then try offering his favourite foods by hand pick something long at first so he doesn't get too close to your fingers. Don't move towards him, let him come to you. As he gets more used to you then start wondering around the pen, slowly and never moving towards him. You want him to learn that you being in his pen doesn't mean you are going to do anything to him or even pay him any attention, and that attacking you doesn't make you go away.

Avoid picking him up for now as he doesn't like it and you don't want to reinforce his dislike of interacting with you. Once he is more happy with you being around him, and later touching him, then you can move on to advanced thing like picking up.

 

[Flash Gordon]

its not hormones ..hes cage aggressive....first i would prob not keep the two males so close together since 1 of them isnt neutered...my male buns really dislike un neutered males anywhere around them..and they show it by having a fit in their cage ..pooping everywhere..throwing stuff around..
next his cage aggression will take alot of time and patience...there are dif methods ..with my cage aggressive bun i put one hand on his head and scratched while the other hand did what i needed to do in his cage and after about 3-4 months of doing this he realized that my hand was a positive thing...now i dont have to scratch him to get into his cage..alot of people recomend wearing a glove when u go into the cage in case he bites and then they slowly let him get used to petting with the glove ..then feeding his fav food to him with the glove on...u gotta get ur bun to associate ur hand with something positive...like scratches,,,or food..
other people just dont mess inside his cage when hes in it..they do it when hes not inside...thats no easy task when u gotta clean up a quick mess..but when ur doing major housecleaning he shouldnt be in there anyways...id be mad too if someone was cleaning my toilet when i was on it...hehe...

him not liking to be picked up is norm for most bunnies....u need to spend some more time with him like Tamsin said..ignore him when ur sitting with him..and dont always reach and grab him...let him be a bunny for awhile...till he gets more comfortable with you guys....
also if its possible to let him come out of his cage by himself ...this really helps alot..seems small but it works wonders...good luck and be patient ...he will come around ..and when he does ull really like seeing him blossom.