I'll try to keep this brief. Six weeks ago, we adopted two single rabbits M and F) to bond with our recently-widowed 8 year old female. They went to a professional bonder and seemed to have bonded as a trio. However, when they came home the bond broke down, despite following all advice. Both females had bonded well with the male but there was a lot of vicious fighting between the females. We spent three weeks working really hard to re-establish a bond between the two females, including bringing them into the house and sleeping next to them, and basically spending 24 hours for days on end watching over them, and it seemed to have worked. We then went on holiday for 3 weeks and they were absolutely fine (home boarding with a rabbit rescue lady).
We brought them home yesterday and all seemed great, but as soon as we gave them access to their outside run, the two females starting getting bristly with each other until a full on fight broke out. We brought them back into their playhouse, and again, they started fighting. I don't have it in me to try and rebond them. They fought so badly before and both I and the females have the scars to show it.
So my dilemma is this. Do we give up the new female, who we really love, or do we keep her as a single house rabbit until our older female passes away in probably a couple of years, whereupon she can be bonded with the male (who she got on fine with before). The rescue we got her from is full (as are most) and she was already waiting for a home for a long time, so we feel we can give her a better life in the short term. But ideally she needs a partner, but I 'm not prepared to get a fourth rabbit, plus as I say, I'm hoping this is only a fix for a year or two. She is a really friendly rabbit, and loves human company, although I know this is not a substitute for rabbit company. WWYD? I'm gutted as we worked so hard to establish a bond, but unfortunately it seems the bond between the females was fragile.