I wish male rabbits would just get on

Our experience of having more than one male in any of our animal types has not been good. It has usually led to aggressive behaviour and fights of a serious intensity sooner or later.
We were somewhat perturbed then, to discover recently that our 3 lovely dwarf lop rabbits were all male at about 4 months old. Both the pet outlets and the vet had wrongly identified them as 2 females and a male.
They had gone from a lovely group of friendly rabbits playing around and feeding
together, to 3 very separate individuals who, even when hungry would not go near the food bowl if another rabbit was already there. Even worse, we realised that they had started to fight as they were showing signs of minor injuries on their ears and noses on a regular basis.
We had no choice but to separate them as soon as we were sure that they were fighting. So it was off to the vets and a hefty bill of over £150 to have the three rabbits castrated. We then waited for 6 weeks before trying to see if they could possibly live together again.
We had gone form having the rabbits all together in one run, which was very spacious, to having them in 3 separate housing areas, always withing view of each other so that they remained familiar. This looked less fun for the rabbits and was certainly more onerous on ourselves in maintaining and cleaning their living quarters, so we were very hopeful that after their ops they would again be able to get on with each other.
Over the last week or two we have cautiously tried to re-introduce them to sharing the same living areas. Unfortunately, other than brief spells when distracted by food it has invariably led to them fighting fairly ferociously and us having to separate them. I accidentally even got bit by one of the rabbits on one occasion! We have tried about 6 times under close supervision and have now accepted that it is not going to work. For their own good we have had to continue to keep them apart. It is such a pity as they were so lovely together.

John
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