What a brat!!

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BSAR

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My 2, almost 3yr old Netherland Dwarf Willow has been such a b*tch lately! It started a few months ago and it has just gotten worse! Last month she bit me hard! And she has never bitten before.

She mostly does this when we give her her food. She will run around like a crazed animal and lunge at you when you put your hand it there. It is scary to feed her! We're lucky she has a door on the top of her cage! (I will get a video of her doing this tomorrow evening.)

Also when in her cage outside it is sometimes hard to catch her, and if you stick anything near her or even not near her she will lunge at it and flick her paws at it.

I was thinking at first it was because she was getting less food and was just having food aggresion or something. But I also know does get b*tchy the older they get and spaying is a good way to deal with it. But she is a show rabbit. And the thing is she is up for sale, to a 4h or pet home, for older child and over obvously.

I need to find out what may be causing it and get her to behave better otherwise no one will want her! I am taking her out tomorrow on her leash for exercise, usually she can run free but its hard to catch her then, if I tried know it would not work. I am also going to be working with her a few times a day since it is summer vacation starting friday. That way I can hopefully have her calmed own more.

She used to be such a sweet girl!

Amanda
 

Is she spayed? Does she live outside or inside? Can you feed her outside of her cage?

My bunnies actually have free roam of different rooms (yes I have bunnies all over my house lol) so I usually just put their food in their cages or on the floor under their cage for Daisy Mae. Sometimes she will box my hand with her front paws but she never tries to bite me.

Susan:)
 
pure bred,not fixed,/can equal a problem,..we saved a pure bred hymalayn-(show rabbit) from the dreaded pet store(from hell)-her behavior is simular,we give her /space and she cools off,..nips are for love(ouch) but drawing blood??,.had my cottontail fixed so i don,t have to do anymore midevil blood letting//he is my baby,had him since he was 4 days old/over 3 years now,.sincerely james waller
 
My rabbit, Layla, does something similar. She suffers from cage agression (from being in a small cage in a shelter for six months) and if I'm putting hay in, she'll lunge and/or try to bite. I've given up on taking out and putting back her pellets. Lol. I pick my battles so I just dump them in from the bag.

However, one thing that I have found that works, espescially if the problem is with food, is that, before I give her the hay, I hold it close to the edge of the cage so that she can take a bite first. Once she knows what I'm putting in, she'll let me reach into the cage. I hope that helps even a little!
 
8ozcup: Yeah she is mostly just aggressive with the food. But that is because she gets that before the hay. With her door being on top she will like bounce up and down in a way and have her nose right at the top looking for food. I've tried once to let her see but she doesn't really get it.

No she isn't spayed. She lives in a shed outside,I can't really feed her outside the cage. Tried that the other day when she was playing outside and she still lunged at me and all. The only way she won't do it is if they are oustide and we feed them before they come in. That way they get food all at the same time.

We always feed them in a certain way though, Bruce always gets pellets first, Sippi always last. So we go from bruce to lily to magic etc etc. Maybe if I started with Willow first she wouldn't get so anxious?

We are going out to feed the rabbits pretty soon so if I remember I will take a video of feeding her.
 
irishbunny wrote:
I heard rabbits can turn like that when they are in pain, maybe she has some problem going on?
No I don't think so. She has been doing it for too long for it to be something wrong. It has been going on for a few months. And it started sort of suddenly, but our other rabbits have gotten a bit like that too. When we started dieting them. I think it had to do with impatience.
 
Okay I didn't get a video because both of my cameras need new batteries. So I will try tonight.

But I fed her first and she was a lot better! She was to preoccupied becasue she hadn't heard the other rabbits getting fed yet so she wasn't worrying about it.
 
Still no video. Cameras aren't working atm.
But Willow has been just a bit better. If we fed her first or like fourth instead of third to last she doesn't get so anxious and all.
So I am still going to keep working with her starting when we get back from oregon this week.
I will continue to let you know how she is doing and I will try to get a video tonight.
 
Well Willow is still being her normal grumpy self.
But just now I happened to pick up my Rabbits for Dummies book to see something and I came across a page about Food Agression. It has some ways to solve it so I am going to try those and see if they help her to not be this way anymore.

I will let ya'll know if they were and all!
 

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