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What to do with bunnies who no longer love each other

Liz1966

Warren Veteran
Many of you are so much more experienced with bunny welfare than me! Grateful for all your views on how to happily resolve this for my 2 house buns & me.

Storm & Mallow are 2 neutered bucks who have lived comfortably & happily in my flat until last Thursday. I brought Storm back from the vets after his castration & put him on his own to recover. When he & Mallow were reunited on Friday morning Storm tried to attack Mallow. I have seperated them & tried to reunite them but each time they have reacted agressively. I've tried letting them see each other through a glass door so they can't get to each other but they either posture aggressively or ignore each other. I've tried reuniting them with one in a cage but they still tried to attack each other through the bars. I'm worried this may not get any better.

Currently I am keeping the bunnies seperately in my flat. This is not good or convenient for any of us. Both bunnies are quite social & like company. That is the problem. I'm concerned that my options will involve 1 or both bunnies getting lonely.

So long term...

Should I persevere & hope they get to like each other or just stay seperate in the same flat. Could be lonely for the bunnies.

Should I seek to rehome 1 bunny.

Do I keep 1 bunny outdoors (Mallow used to be an outdoor bunny before I bought him end of July). Could be lonely or I could get him a girlfriend but don't want to get more bunnies than I can give attention to.

Any thoughts on the best option?

Liz
 
Many of you are so much more experienced with bunny welfare than me! Grateful for all your views on how to happily resolve this for my 2 house buns & me.

Storm & Mallow are 2 neutered bucks who have lived comfortably & happily in my flat until last Thursday. I brought Storm back from the vets after his castration & put him on his own to recover. When he & Mallow were reunited on Friday morning Storm tried to attack Mallow. I have seperated them & tried to reunite them but each time they have reacted agressively. I've tried letting them see each other through a glass door so they can't get to each other but they either posture aggressively or ignore each other. I've tried reuniting them with one in a cage but they still tried to attack each other through the bars. I'm worried this may not get any better.

Currently I am keeping the bunnies seperately in my flat. This is not good or convenient for any of us. Both bunnies are quite social & like company. That is the problem. I'm concerned that my options will involve 1 or both bunnies getting lonely.

So long term...

Should I persevere & hope they get to like each other or just stay seperate in the same flat. Could be lonely for the bunnies.

Should I seek to rehome 1 bunny.

Do I keep 1 bunny outdoors (Mallow used to be an outdoor bunny before I bought him end of July). Could be lonely or I could get him a girlfriend but don't want to get more bunnies than I can give attention to.

Any thoughts on the best option?

Liz

Personally I would leave it a few weeks until the hormones have dropped and then try and reintroduce them on neutral territory. Leave them in the meanwhile where they can see each other and swap them over at times in to each other territories.

If they do pair up on totally neutral territory, do not put them back on their old territory before it has been properly neutralised.

If they dont bond back together I would then consider how you can accomodate them separately, perhaps gettingthe bun who will live outside a female companion.

If you do end up managing to get these buns back together, please do keep them together at all times, even for vet visits however small. This does drastically reduce the chance of problems occuring. If your vet will not agree to this, I would suggest that you change vets.
 
Where did you reunite them? If it was in their old territory then the boy left behind will naturally attack the 'newcomer' (he'll see him as new as he'd smell funny after the vets)
 
I would definately leave the re-bonding for a few weeks... as previously stated the hormones will still be quite high, so there is a likelyhood this will keep happening.

I've just had this happen with my two bucks, Jamie and Kitt - only, as the vet revealed, it appears that Jamie has been bullying Kitt over time... which only became apparant after Kitt had to have an operation on a tare down his side which went through muscle!! This again being blamed on Jamie.

I'm seperating them for good, but looking to get a hutch and run which I can position adjacent to each other so they at least have a bit of company. I'd love nothing more than girlfriends for them both but, at the moment, I can't fund this.

Good luck with your bucks, definately give it time xx
 
Hi Liz,

I empathise completely. My two bunnies have been the bestest of friends for almost 3 years then about 2 months ago Charlie was really ill with E.cuniculi. Charlie was at the vets for a week, then a day patient for a week, and then still too wobbly to be able to deal with trying to get them back together. So they were apart for about a month before we tried them back together. I've made progress but its very slow. Charlie isn't well enough to fight it out so I've been very gentle - we started putting them together for whole days at the weekend in a neutral room (spare bedroom) and staying with them, they were a bit aggressive with each other but we'd step in and it gradually got better.

We then had a few weeks of them living in the lounge together but with separate playtimes and they started to have less spats through the bars. Now we're a couple of weeks into them having joint playtimes but still being put to bed separately - their interaction is strange, they sometimes lick each other, and will share a bowl but a lot of the time Lavender will hop over to Charlie and he'll have a flid and run away, but she's not actually done anything to him!

I know not everyone would do it this way but while we're making progress I think its the right thing to do.

I think mine will be friends again, it'll just take time, so lets hope its the same for yours, so don't give up yet.

I would definitely second Janice's comments on taking both buns to the vets if at all possible, I've always done that will all my buns and insisted that they're put back together as soon as possible after operations etc. Even if they're there in separate cages it makes them smell the same. Alas when Charlie had EC he was just too ill to be kept with Lavender. :(
 
Many thanks for all your responses. I will keep them seperately for a few weeks & then re-introduce them gently.

I do have a very good rabbit vet & I'm sure they'll be very happy to have both bunnies together.
 
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