# Will two females get along?



## ranedrops (Sep 18, 2008)

Hi everyone. I had posted about our new bunny Zoey's unexpected litter. Well, everything is going great. The babies are getting big. We were deciding whether to keep one or not , we were thinking of keeping a female if we do.

Will 2 females get along? 

People have told me they will fight. Is this true? What if they are mom & daughter, does this make a difference?


Would it be better to keep a male? (Of course having him neutered)


Thanks so much for the help. This board is great! :biggrin2:


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## Maureen Las (Sep 18, 2008)

You have a better chance of them getting along because they are already together. I know people who have mom's and daughters and also sisters. 
if you keep a boy you would have to reintroduce to mom 

the girl and mom should be spayed anyway to make it easier. 

no guarantees but at least you have the opportunity to observe who likes who at the present time.


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## slavetoabunny (Sep 18, 2008)

I have two bonded females that are not related to each other. I agree that a mom and daughter would have a good chance of being a bonded couple. Spaying will help immensely with their relationship.


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## tonyshuman (Sep 18, 2008)

I don't think 2 unspayed females can get along, but mother/daughter or sisters absolutely could. You might have to work a bit harder for non-relatives.


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## Ninchen (Sep 20, 2008)

tonyshuman wrote:


> I don't think 2 unspayed females can get along



I have two unspayed females, who like each other very much.


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## tonyshuman (Sep 22, 2008)

Oh. Well I guess there's an exception to any rule!


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## AngelnSnuffy (Sep 22, 2008)

Aw, very cute pics!

And yes, there can be an exception to any rule with buns, lol! Maybe it's just luck sometimes.


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## Ninchen (Sep 22, 2008)

you can try it, but they could start to fight after a year...

I got three unspayed female rabbits from our shelter, they lived togehter in one cage.

I was told, that they would never fight and females were never spayed.
(tells me now a lot about the knowledge of the staff there!)






the three are more than rare!:biggrin2:


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## 12354somebunny (Sep 22, 2008)

Awwww, your girls are so cute, Ninchen! It's nice to see them so snuggly and lovey dovey


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## MyLOVEABLES!! (Sep 24, 2008)

I have two females =]!! they are sisters  is that an exception?


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## MyRabbits (Sep 25, 2008)

That's an interesting question. Based on my own experiences and the risk of uterine cancer in rabbits absent spaying, I would recommend you get both the mother and the daughter spayed. Bunny social dynamics can be quite interesting. There's no particular reason why the mother and a spayed kit shouldn't get along though at some point, as the female kit grows and becomes size-wise a threat to the Mother's dominance, they may have to resolve the issue of who is really dominant. I.e., they may go through a stage where they fight. 

I have two spayed females who were littermates, Dorcas and Jemimah. They readily accepted the non-neutered buck that preceded them on my premises. At about one year of age, when the one we thought was the runt actually grew to be quite a bit larger than the other, the two had a very serious fight and needed to be separated again for a couple of weeks and then reintroduced. Having apparently resolved that issue, they have generally not revisited it -- at least, only revisiting it when additional bunnies and complex bunny social dynamics came into play: The male rabbit died and some years later, I picked up an unspayed female rescue rabbit, who fit in fine with the two littermates once she was spayed. Before that, she constantly picked battles for dominance with Dorcas. After spaying, as a threesome they got along great. They continued to get along great when we added our first Flemish Giant buck, Ben. Ben died an untimely death, and shortly thereafter we got our second Flemish Giant buck, Sam. For some reason, once Sam was introduced, Jemimah and Maddie really turned on Dorcas, who is the smallest of the rabbits. I have had to remove Dorcas from the general bunny population and keep her in a different portion of the house. Although I have tried several times to reintroduce her, her littermate Jemimah is always the first to launch an aggressive attack . . . Fortunately, Dorcas seems to enjoy being an "only" bunny. 

There are certain things that you can do to discipline rabbits so that they get along better than they would otherwise as they go through the dominance-challenging phase. Rabbits are very social creatures. When one of ours has started to get aggressive with the others, we have generally given them a day or two of "time-out" by isolating them in the bathroom. A rabbit who is misbehaving and aggressively asserting her dominance will take this punishment very seriously. By taking away the possibility of social interaction, you have taken away the basis of her power, her sense of dominance. 

Anyway, this is rather long. I ramble. I hope it was of some help to you in your weighing of the possibilities.


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