We’ve had Frank (2.5yo) since August 2021, and Thistle (1yo) since March 2023. Both are very social with people and extremely chill.

We kept them on separate sides of our bedroom with a barrier in our last apartment, bonding efforts were pretty lax because we knew we were moving so we’d have a neutral territory for them.

We moved the rabbits to the new apartment last week, and they were doing really well. We drove them the hour and a half here in a carrier together and Thistle gave Frank a short groom, and we put them in a tiny pen together with hay and water to get them used to living together. That went super well so we increased the size of their pen after two days, and added a litter box. That was also going super well, so we decided to let them out of the pen and into the main room after a couple days.

That went fine for about a day and a half, until I came home from work at 7:30a.m. and found clumps of fur covering the floor of the living room. Both have some minor scabbing and a couple bald spots but no serious injuries, luckily.

We tried putting them back into a small space but the fighting continued. Thistle will occasionally groom Frank, but she DEMANDS to be groomed and won’t back off if he ignores her. She’ll start nipping/fighting if she doesn’t get the reaction that she wants. We separated them for a day and a half because we were feeling overwhelmed, then today took them on another car ride to pick up hay. We saw Frank grooming her at least once in the car which was a first.

When we got home we cleaned the floor and put their pen in a corner they’ve never been in before. Just hay and water. And within 30 minutes Thistle started a fight again. We made their space even smaller so they have basically no room to fight, but I’m feeling really anxious about how this is going to proceed.

We have a really small apartment and finding space for two dedicated rabbit zones (where they can still see/hear/smell each other) is going to be almost impossible. I don’t want to rehome Thistle, but Frank desperately needs another rabbit and they might be too dominant for each other :(