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Bella and Tarquin have moved in together :) - moving in pics pg 4

Becca6

Mama Doe
My two have me completely baffled. They live very happily side by side since their bonding didn't work. They met once by accident and locked on badly and I had to separate.

I now have upstairs divided into two with pen sections so they're both out at the same time and they swap sides so the whole of upstairs is a shared area except their cages - though they go in each other's cages when it's their turn on that side.

I'm under no illusions that they can live together in a cage, and have no plans to try bonding again.

Tonight Bella has managed to get through (she's also managed to get to Ollie's cat biscuits that I thought were out of reach) :shock: - she's in a very determined mood today. So I'll be buying a pet gate next week that she won't be able to lift out of the way.

So me, T and Ol were watching CSI on the bed and Bell has joined us. I'm fully on my guard and waiting to snatch, but T and Bell are now on the bedroom floor together and neither seem concerned though my heart is going mad. Both hopping round the room happily and sniffing noses but not really looking for each other. Being very careful not to let them near the bunny room as that's where they met and fought last time.

After 40 minutes T has gone back to his cage and Bell has also taken herself to bed - with both eagerly touching noses through the bars as she passed his cage.

What is going on? Can they live in separate cages with supervised sessions together? I love them both dearly and am very happy with the way things are.
 
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If it works and both rabbits seem happy then I don't think it's our place to say no it can't be done :) Obviously, you'll need to keep a very close eye on them but yes if they are happy exploring a communal area together but want to retire to separate rooms at bedtime there is nothing wrong with that.

Tamsin
 
They might be the Dot and Jim out of Eastenders and like single beds lol,
My 2 house buns have a cage each and the only place they wont fight is on the sofa, anywhere else and all hell breaks
 
I'm very very wary as they had proper lock-on fights and I would never risk anything happening by putting them in a cage together. I'd also be worried about them being together in their room, but maybe an hour together every evening in the bedroom will work. If my nerves can cope with it. :roll: I suppose I'll only know by trying it.
 
I'm very very wary as they had proper lock-on fights and I would never risk anything happening by putting them in a cage together. I'd also be worried about them being together in their room, but maybe an hour together every evening in the bedroom will work. If my nerves can cope with it. :roll: I suppose I'll only know by trying it.

Maddie lept out her cage once when Flynn was having a play ( they shared the room but played separately) and they chose to have a full on locked up fight right under the dining room table where I couldn't reach them:shock: One soft broom later and enough fur left on the carpet to stuff a few hundred pillows and I thought omg that's blown it completely.
I needed the room at Christmas and never thought I'd get away with having them close after the fight but they were brilliant. I was extremely nervous and the first supervised session in the bathroom was 4 hours, but while I won't tempt fate, they are together and snuggle up, sleep and play together every day and so far so good. We are now 2 months down the track...:D
 
Awww that sounds good :D 'Sillyrabbit' was asking the same question the other day - some bunnies do play together but not live together for some reason - I'm sure it can't be a bad thing :)
 
Miracle Bonding – vibes needed please

I started a slow bonding of Bella and Tarquin on Saturday. My hope was they’d be happy enough to spend an hour together a day, but wasn't expecting anything more than that.

The first meeting took place on Saturday:

First-meeting1---170208.jpg


After this they both jumped off the bed and spent 40 minutes mooching around together, occasionally meeting and lying nose to nose, but nothing more.

When the pen door has been closed they have pretty much sat like this the whole time (my carpet is totally gross – but as I’ve now had four house bunnies who have all liked plucking the carpet I have no intention of replacing it and so I put up with this awful one - and one of the little monkeys pulled all the hay out of their hay box yesterday so it's all over the place :roll:):

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Much to my amazement, and particularly as I’ve done it all wrong, last night – day four – Tarquin started grooming Bella. I am in complete shock :shock:

At 8.00 pm, as I’ve done since I started this, I let Bella through the barrier and she came into the bedroom where T was. They met and touched noses and T took himself off to the "other side" after five minutes, she was happily destroying a box and I thought that was it for the night and was all ready to close the pen gate and go and get my tea.

Bella followed T onto the landing and then went and hopped into T’s cage and he skipped after her. Major panic as I didn’t think they should be in a confined space so I was about to grab him but the next minute Bella laid down in front of him, and he spent a few minutes properly grooming her – the only thing more frightening would have been them in Bell's cage :shock:

After that they both went onto the landing and Bell fully stretched out and T very enthusiastically groomed her nose, ears, eyes. She's been practically begging him all week to groom her, even shoving her head under his which made him a bit jumpy but last night he was very confident and she was loving it. I think by the end of the three hours there had been about seven grooming sessions. I never thought I'd be seeing this - he can't get enough of her!

Igivein-190208.jpg


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They spent three hours happily pottering around together on the landing with lots of grooming with the bunny room door shut. There was one very minor scuffle when they went in the bedroom – a bit of fur flying but over very quickly.

Never having done anything like this before I haven’t a clue what to do next. Have they established who is top bun and don't need to do the scrapping and stuff?

They were happier and more relaxed on the landing so I sat with them on the top stair wondering what on earth to do next - this is what you get when you start something :roll:.

In the end I decided that however well it was going, I'd have hated for something to spoil the incredible progress they'd made, and as I’d started the session still quite clear that they would never be able to live together, I separated them for the night.

This morning within about three minutes of putting them together T was grooming Bell. No sign of her returning the favour, but then as I never expected T to give in so quickly I suppose I just have to wait and hope it happens.

So I’m now thinking that this evening and tomorrow evening they can stay on the landing and bathroom together with the bunny room shut, but back to their own cages at night and during the day. I may have the day off on Friday and put them together all day and be able to monitor very closely, or leave it until Saturday.

If it gets to a point where I feel it’s safe to try them living together, I assume I need to neutralise both their cages before they can move in? My plan is that they will have both cages to share in an L-shape – the front of Bella’s cage lifts up and the end of T’s can be lifted up and both can be secured. So they’ll have that, but then I’ll also put a pen round the front bit of Bella’s cage that will be open, so they’ll actually have more space together than they do on their own.

You can sort of see from this how the cages are arranged, and the rectangular bit will make up the penned off bit.

Bed-Time---3.jpg


Please can you send some vibes that Bella will start to groom T and that after thinking they were unbondable all this time, that they may end up living happily together.

Sorry for the long post, but I am so happy that this miracle is happening against all the odds :oops:

Edit: PS: thanks to Sooz and Elve for calming my frayed nerves last night :D
 
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It was T that gave in last time Becca, I still have pics on my mobile of him grooming Bella.

Its just a matter of her feeling secure enough stop bun to not take a pop at him and hpoing that nobun tries to mount the other, that can be a major trigger for some rabbits. Hopefully they are relaxed enough at home to feel less threatened by each other now.
 
Hi Becca

Aww so pleased for you that your buns have decided to bond and sending lots of vibes they carry on with the grooming. :)
Bonding is a nightmare, I did mine slowly more for my benefit than Millie & Jack's :)

I think someone once mentioned moving the cages into a new position (as well as cleaning) can help as they think it's new and so don't get territorial.

Fingers crossed it carries on going well
 
I'm not going to believe they can live together until I've seen Bella grooming T - it's all a bit unreal at the moment as I never thought this would happen.

I can't really move the cages as there isn't room with the other stuff in the room, but I thought I'd rearrange the things in the cages and with the pen in front hopefully it might make a difference. Though to be honest if they're happy as they are spending the evenings together but don't quite make it to sharing their cages then I'd be happy with that.

And this is the person who said they would never ever ever attempt to bond them after they accidentally got together last year :lol:
 
awww lovely photos :D and isn't Bella huge :shock: Or is it Tarquin's tiny? hope they carry on being friends, if not roomies :D
 
awww lovely photos :D and isn't Bella huge :shock: Or is it Tarquin's tiny? hope they carry on being friends, if not roomies :D

Its both, T is tiny and Bella is enormous, easily three times his size.

Because there are so few photos of them together it's easy to think they're about the same size, and sometimes he can look bigger because of it being a closer shot.

I've been to M&S and bought some honey and some apple sauce to try and get Bell to groom him. If that doesn't work I'll go and buy some jam tomorrow. Only the best for my buns :lol: :lol: And of course I can eat it too :D
 
Remember to wash it off if it dosn't get licked off, especially honey. Poor Paige had a bald spot for ages after it got stuck in her fur :oops:
 
Thanks - I wouldn't have thought of that :oops: I feel a bit rotten giving her a "reward" of something nice and sweet, when he's been the good boy and groomed her first :lol: Plus he's the one who's going to end up covered in the stuff :D
 
Day five of the slow bond and I'm wondering why on earth I started this. Things were fine as they were and we were all happy.

I think my confidence of yesterday after the unexpected grooming has lessened. Maybe I'm expecting too much - this was intended to be a very slow bond with no expectations of happy ever after.

There has been one bit of humping, lots of grooming (though Bell still won't groom T and I can tell he really wants her to), a bit of mutual chasing, quite a lot of sitting close to each other and sharing hay, and a small amount of both getting on with their own thing (they've only been together an hour :)). After one grooming session T humped Bell - the first time this has happened since I started this. Then he chased her, she chased him and then it calmed down - no physical contact during the chasing.

I suppose I'm just nervous because of knowing how nasty it can get, and not quite confident enough to believe that this might work. I'm sure that everything so far is completely normal, but as it has been anything but normal before and I've never gone through any of this before, it's very very scarey. I love them both so much and think I got a little carried away last night after the excitement of seeing T grooming Bell so enthusiastically. I just want them both to be happy, which at the moment they both seem to be.

Feeling a bit sorry for myself :(
 
I think you're doing good. Even if it stays with them just running about together each day that's still a positive change. You're not on the clock so don't panic about how quick they do things.

A bit of humping is normal even in established pairs :) Sometimes grooming is a bit one sided but they'll work it out.

Tam
 
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