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Confused!

ljm-arnott

Young Bun
I was hoping that somebody on here would please be able to give me some advice and info as to what my two buns are doing as they have completely confused us! :shock:

A bit of background to our dilemma: They both have seperate runs in the garden as although Arthur has been de-plummed, Lola has not yet been spayed (she's booked in for next week!). A couple of months ago, they were showing interest in each other so we moved the two runs closer together. We watched their reactions and as they seemed to like lying next to each other and feeding together we kept moving the runs closer until they were touching. All has been well and I hoped that this was a good sign for us bonding them together once Lola is spayed. However, tonight we have been watching Arthur put his nose through the gaps in the run and Lola scratch at it with both her front paws. He doesn't run away, he keeps putting his nose through and waits patiently for her to scratch at it again. She has done it so much that fur started to come off and he has a small bald patch on his nose. We therefore separated the runs again.

Sorry for the long post but what I would really like to know is whether anybody has heard anything like this before and whether it is a bad sign for future bonding between them both?

Thank you in advance.
From a very confused ljm-arnott! :?
 
What happens when they are separate has no telling of what will happen when they are together. When Donny and Lola were single they thumped and followed each other (in separate runs) aggressively, but they only took 2 days to bond :D

Try not to worry about it :wave: just be careful they can't get to each other in case they cause an injury. :wave:
 
When B & B were kept seperate I had incidents like that too, I was never quite sure if Bella wanted to play with Boris or murder him :shock: :lol: But then he decided to be the dominant bun which made things easier, Bella didn't dare do anything but obey :lol: They are very much in love now nearly 2 years later :)
 
Hi folks, I'm ljm-arnott's partner and thought I'd shed some more light on this to see if anybody else has experienced similar behavior.

Basically, Arthur (I call him Arthur-Plops, or "Plops" for short) sticks his nose through the bars of the run, so that his nose is in Lola's side, and he also puts his head as low as possible to the ground, almost in a submissive manner.

However, Arthur is the male and quite a bit bigger than Lola (who is a mini Lop), so I'm not sure why he would be trying to be submissive. Also, he quite happily leaves his nose there as she pummels it with her front feet and often appears to be trying to bite it.

Yesterday we also found lots of Arthur's fur in Lola's run, as if she'd been pulling it or nibbling it off when we weren't looking. Again, he stayed on the side right next to her run and kept sticking his nose through, so he can't be that bothered. Originally when this happened he used to growl at her and shove his front paws through the bars, making her jump (although she'd still carry on nibbling at his nose straight away!), but now he doesn't seem to care...almost like he wants her to pummel his face!

Anyway, sorry for the monster first post, I'm just really curious why they're doing what they're doing.

Thanks!
 
By the sounds of it he is absolutely desperate for bunny company.

Him putting his head down is yes, him being submissive. He's probably happy to be the lower bun in the hierarchy, just so he can have a friend.

Just make sure when you do the bonding you do it in neutral territory and do your best to neutralise the runs.
 
Interesting - I always thought the "head-down" position was actually a dominance thing - as in "I am top bun, you will groom me"? :?
 
Hmm, interesting. Of the two of them, Lola seems more interested. As he runs around his side of the run (they are circular and connected at one side, like a figure of eight) she runs back and forth along the side closest to him, trying to stay close to him.

Often he comes over to her side and sits with his back to her, with his fur sticking through into her side - kinda making out that he's not interested, though he obviously is. She hides nothing though, and frantically grunts and moves around trying to get his attention or nibble his fur. She does much the same with me when she's in her cage. She'll follow me across the front of her cage grunting at me for attention. Though she constantly grunts anyway. If I'm rubbing Arthur's head (his cage is below hers) then she hangs out of her cage looking down at me and grunting for attention.

Arthur on the other hand, just sits by the door of his cage with his head down (similar to how he puts it in front of Lola) waiting for me to stroke his head/nose. The difference is that I don't pummel his face or pull his hair out!

Anyway, once Lola has been spayed and her hormones have gone, we'll be putting them together in as big a cage as we can find (probably a large dog crate with extra floors added) so it'll be a totally new environment for them both. (After dating, of course.) With the run, I guess we'll have to clean it and move it to somewhere new in the garden, though they have scattered their poos everywhere, so I don't know if that'll establish territories or not.

I'm not too worried about Arthur, as he's a fair bit bigger than Lola, so I'm sure he could handle himself if he needed to. As for Lola, I'm thinking of putting a small area for her in the new cage, one that Arthur can't fit into, just in case Lola needed to get some alone time from Arthur when we're not there.
 
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Interesting - I always thought the "head-down" position was actually a dominance thing - as in "I am top bun, you will groom me"? :?

That's what I always thought too. Alfie is top bun here and he's always putting his head down in front of Bubbles to demand nose rubs.

How bunnies behave when they're side by side in different pens is no indication to how a bond is going to go though; as long as you follow the usual bonding rules of a small space on neutral territory etc then you have a very good chance of success.
 
What's most likely in this situation? In some ways I thought he was being dominant, by having his nose in her territory and not backing off, even when she pummels him, but then the fact that he has his head down and lets her take chunks of his fur makes me think differently.
 
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