This is a specific conversation about Rabbit housing — space and setup that works — ask about yours and get one honest answer for your exact situation.
inparticular.ai
Territorial tension between bonded females usually means one thing: not enough space. Even rabbits that get along well will start tussling when they can't get away from each other, eat without competition, or claim their own sleeping corner. Most hutches and cages sold in pet shops are genuinely too small for a single rabbit, let alone two — they need room for at least three full hops, to stand completely upright, and to keep their sleeping and toilet areas separate. So before we talk solutions: are they kept indoors or outdoors, and what sort of space do you have available to work with?
They're indoors, in a two-storey wooden hutch I bought from a pet shop. It's about 120cm wide. They've been bonded for eight months and were fine until about a month ago — now there's a lot of chasing and one of them keeps getting cornered.
inparticular.ai
That tracks perfectly. 120cm sounds decent on paper but it's genuinely cramped for two rabbits once they hit full maturity and start asserting themselves — and female Lionheads can be surprisingly feisty. The cornering behaviour is the key sign: the chased rabbit has nowhere to retreat to, which builds stress and escalates things. Are both of them spayed? That makes a significant difference with bonded females, and if they're not, hormones could be amplifying everything you're seeing.
Yes, both spayed. I've got a reasonably large living room — I could probably dedicate a good-sized corner to them if the right setup existed.
inparticular.ai
Good — that changes your options completely. If you've got floor space, a large modular pen setup is far better than any enclosed hutch for two bonded rabbits. The one I'd point you to is the Midwest Homes for Pets Wabbitat Folding Rabbit Home. It's a well-made wire enclosure that gives a solid footprint — significantly more usable floor space than your current hutch — and it's easy to add a second unit or attach an exercise pen alongside it, which is exactly what you want here. The open design means neither rabbit ever feels trapped; they can move away from each other, which is what breaks the tension cycle. You'd put their litter trays, food bowls, and hides at opposite ends so each one has her own territory within a shared space. That's the thing that tends to resolve the cornering — give them both an 'out' and the chasing usually drops off quickly.
That sounds promising. Would I need two of them linked together, or is one unit enough?
inparticular.ai
One Wabbitat unit is a meaningful upgrade on what you have, but for two rabbits with existing tension I'd honestly go with the pen alongside it rather than a second identical unit. A large C&C or wire exercise pen — the kind you can buy in panels and configure yourself — attached to the side gives you a much bigger continuous run without a transition point that one rabbit could block. Think of the Wabbitat as their sleeping and feeding base, and the pen as their roaming space. That combination is hard to beat indoors and it's cheaper than buying two full units.
Okay, that makes sense. And do I need to do a full re-bond after changing the setup, or will they settle in together naturally?
inparticular.ai
With rabbits that are already bonded and spayed, a full re-bond in neutral territory isn't usually necessary when you're just expanding their space — you're removing the problem rather than introducing a new stressor. Move them both into the new setup at the same time so neither one claims it first, put two of everything in at opposite ends, and give them a day or two to find their rhythm. Watch for normal chase-and-yield behaviour settling down versus escalating — if it escalates over a week or so despite the extra space, that's when a vet check is worth doing in case there's an underlying health issue making one of them irritable. But in the vast majority of cases like yours, more space is the whole answer.