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More bonding tips needed

Lindy

Young Bun
We have a ten year old female who has been bonded four times, all easily, and they spent 24 hours a day together. It would take about two weeks, but we have never had a problem. She has always shared a (large) hutch and run, and when we are home they've had the entire garden to play in.

About three months ago we adopted a three year old male from the RSPCA, and he is gentle and adorable. Both bunnies love to be stroked, fussed and cuddled. However, they just will not bond. We have tried the usual things of swapping hutches for a while, taking turns in the run, bringing them indoors. It all goes fine until they are in the garden together, then they would rip each other to pieces given the chance. Indoors, and in the supervised small area in the garden they will groom each other, cuddle up, but as soon as we take a step back, yikes, scary. The male bunny was at the vet's for a week with a very bad scratch, and the old female had a nasty bite.

What can we do and why isn't it working this time? They are both such friendly rabbits who come up to us in the garden and love being petted, even love each other when we sit with them. I desperately want them to share a hutch, but we had to buy Molly's mansion for the new one! At the moment they take turns in the garden, but sit next to each other, separated by the mesh in the run, as if they want to be together.

Any helpful suggestions would be much appreciated.
 
Aw, I have been having bonding issues too but I have created my own problem.

The only thing I can think of is if you keep them out of the garden for a while so that they forget about it, hopefully it will rain a few times so it will smell different too, that way they have time to bond a little tighter together too.

Then, when you do put them back in there, they will be so happy to have all that space.

Angela :wave:
 
We did try that. We brought them indoors for a week and tried them outdoors again (after a couple of weeks of rain here in the north west), but same old thing. As I say, if we stay with them, they are fine. We have them in a large plastic tray with a towel in, in the garden, and they happily groom each other. As soon as we walk back a few yards and they hop out, it's as though they hate each other.

I am so scared they get injured again. We let them chase for a short while, maybe thirty seconds, to try to sort out their differences, but when it starts to look nasty we put them back in the big plastic tray, and they are happy!

I've never come across it before. No doubt it will rain again here today (!), so we'll try again tomorrow. We'll bring them indoors again tonight, and then they'll appear like a young couple in love :love: I think it's the old female who is the difficult one, but the boy gives as good as he gets.
 
i think it might be too much space in to short time?? :?
i know mine took ages for the chasing to stop when i increased the space each time. :roll:
can you maybe patition some of the garden and then each day increase their space?
 
Thanks Angie. In all honesty there isn't an easy way of partioning of a bit of the garden and enlarging it, I'll have to try to think of something. I am sure there's a lot in what you say. It's just so weird that the old bunny has done this four times in the past, without any problem, and she is definitely the trouble causer when they hop out of the large tray into the garden!

It's a fair sized garden that we have spent an absolute fortune over the years trying to bunny/fox/cat proof. I amnot sure how we can section a bit off, and then keep increasing the size, but we'll get our heads together and try to think of something.

Thanks again. I've just been out to check on them, and the boy has the garden time at the moment (I keep swapping them around), but he just lies next to her run, in love.
 
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