Stress bondings..

I stumbled across a video of a 'stressful situation' bonding. Apparently you put the bunnies in a stressful situation like sticking them on a tumble dryer??.. and because the bunnies are frightened they bond to each other. Has anyone tried this?

My biggest concern about people doing stressful bonding would be stasis. When i was bonding Hazel and Honey, Hazel became stressed from the chasing etc and went into stasis. Luckily he recovered quickly and we were able to successfully bond them.

Surely bunnies forced into a stressful situation would have a high chance of stasis? :?
And purposely causing mental distress to any animal seems rather mean, when there are alternatives.

i have heard of this before (though they recomended putting them in a carrier in the car together) personaly i would be releuctant to try this. some animals panic in stressfull situations its all to easy to imagine them fighting/injuring each other in thair terror.....:?

i have always bonded my buns via controlled intoductions which, while the bonding has take weeks in a couple of cases, i feel is the least stressful for all concerned.

Personally I think that doing gradual introductions over weeks is every bit as stressful to the rabbits as putting them in a forced stressful situation. It doesn't give them the opportunity to properly sort out their hierachy and I think it's more likely to make the bonding fail because the constant together/apart confuses them and makes them cross, stressed and territorial. It just increases the stress levels over a period of weeks rather than a few hours/couple of days.

Personally I think it's far better to put them together on neutral territory (but not a forced deliberately high-stress situation) and let them get on with it, only separating them if absolutely necessary because of fighting. Over the past 10-15 years most rescues have moved from gradual introductions to an 'introduce once and let them get on with it' approach, finding that it is much less stressful on the rabbits overall and results in quicker and less risky bonds.

I guess it's one of those topics where you'll get lots of different opinions though and what is right for one bun/person isn't right for another

same as putting them in a carrier and taking them in the car,they are supposed to find comfort in each other [Daisy obviously hadnt read that bit :roll:] Bonding is stressful for bunnies anyway, the idea is to get it over and done with quickly.

Tumble dryer?! :shock: :shock:

I've done the car ride method to start off loads of bondings. It works a treat :thumb:

abbymarysmokey said:

Tumble dryer?! :shock: :shock:

I've done the car ride method to start off loads of bondings. It works a treat :thumb:

Click to expand...

Does it work with aggressive buns?

You need to consider why the bun is aggressive, and what the bun is beign aggressive about and deal with those issues first.