Owner, rescue centre and veterinary professional experience in rabbit bonding

It is surprising that 40% of owners report a pair of rabbits that fought so badly that they had to separate them. The majority of these pairs (67%) were both neutered and lived in an adequate environment. The major triggers for bond breakdown were illness or separation, puberty, and the introduction of new rabbits. This suggests the importance of advising owners and veterinary professionals on how to keep rabbits together during illness, veterinary visits, and hospitalisation wherever possible.

Data from all surveys suggest that male-female pairs are more stable than any other pairing or group and that groups of rabbits are more stable than either single-sex pairing. While we did not explicitly ask how many male-male pairs, male-female pairs and female-female pairs they had owned (an omission, in hindsight), we believe that the representation of each pair and group in the bonds attempted by the survey respondents can act as a reasonable approximation for the incidence in the overall population.

A large proportion of owners report that a bonded pair of young rabbits (usually male-male) started fighting at puberty. Rabbit breeders often keep young female rabbits to breed from, which means that there will always be more pet male rabbits than pet female ones. This poses a welfare dilemma – how to keep male rabbits in pairs without causing bond breakdown. There could be different solutions – prepubertal neutering (though this has poor public perception), post-neutering bonding at rescue centres (though this requires solitary housing prior to puberty), or no longer selling pre-pubertal male-male pairs. Additionally, advising against female-female pairs would avoid worsening the discrepancy and would increase the number of stable male-female pairings possible.

From the additional analysis of when practices advised neutering of young rabbits, it was clear that many practices did not recommend neutering male rabbits as early as RWAF suggests. RWAF recommends castrating rabbits at 10-12 weeks or as soon as the testicles descend, but only 23% of practices (32/139) recommended this. Waiting longer than three months increases the risk that young male rabbits will fight, and once they fight, neutering rarely allows them to be reintroduced. RWAF recommends that female rabbits be spayed at 16–20 weeks of age, and 79% (104/139) practices recommended spaying female rabbits at or before 20 weeks of age. The practices submitting these data are self-selected for an interest in rabbit medicine, and it is likely that less-engaged practices may recommend similar ages for neutering for rabbits, cats, and dogs (typically 4–6 months). Therefore, encouraging practices to neuter male rabbits early might have substantial welfare benefits.

From the veterinary professional survey, it was clear that some fights caused very severe injuries. Vets were most likely to see owners fighting male-male rabbit pairs, then female­–female pairs, then male-female pairs. This is in contrast to the bond breakdowns reported by owners. It is possible that this reflected an increased severity in fights between two male rabbits or an increased risk of injury when males were involved. The external genitalia of male rabbits is much more likely to be injured than that of females, and injuries involving the urethra are extremely difficult to repair. Injuries to males from females often occur when the male mounts the female rabbit’s head and has its external genitalia bitten. Injuries to males from males often occur when one rabbit lies on its back and kicks out – this can cause scrotal or penile injury or even evisceration. Vets perceived that lack of neutering and rabbits reaching puberty were significant causes of bond breakdown – this may reflect the fact that they primarily saw male-male pairs. It was notable that all of the reported fatal fights involved single-sex pairings, which described – primarily male-male pairings.

In general, rescue staff and veterinary professionals reported similar causes of bond breakdowns. This supports the hypothesis that rescue centre staff and veterinary professionals may see the worst breakdowns, which occur in single-sex pairs. This may explain the discrepancy between the likelihood of bond breakdown in different pairs as reported by owners as compared to those reported by rescue centres. For both groups, it appears that male-female pairs are significantly more stable than any other pairings and that it is very significantly less likely that a rabbit will require rehoming after bond breakdown if it is in a male-female pair.

In general, it seemed that groups were harder to bond with and less stable than male-female pairs. This is likely to be because, within a pair, there are two relationships (each rabbit’s relationship with its partner). Within a group of three, there are six relationships. If each relationship has a set probability of breaking down, then the more relationships there are, the more likely there is to be a breakdown. However, the data from both owners and rescue centres suggests that groups of rabbits seem less likely to break down than single-sex pairs (which is somewhat surprising, given that within any group, there will be at least two animals of the same sex). The network of relationships between a group of rabbits may help to reduce the stress between a certain pair of rabbits because they can interact with others – perhaps, if the pair of rabbits were kept without others, the bond might break down.