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Bonding two boys: Do or don't?

Dollie

Warren Scout
Just a hypothetical question, I don't have any plans. ;) but what would be your advice if I wanted to bond two neutered boys. What's the success rate in this, is it a common combination?

Just curious. :wave:
 
I would say proceed with caution and be extra vigilant during the bonding process but it's not impossible.
 
Pretty much do everything that you'd do when bonding girl x boy or boy x boy. Have patience, make sure they are both submissive or that only one is dominant, neutral space, separate them if the fighting is getting intense, etc. It can be done- I had two bonded boys that took only three 1 hour sessions to fall in love. Girl x boy was actually much harder and took me five months :?
 
I have found boy boy generally an easy bond - but it depends on the character of your bun (as do boy girl bonds).

In fact the hardest I find personally are girl girl bonds
 
I had a boy-boy bond, they're now a trio with a female (which isn't really recommended) but they're brilliant together :) Both are quite laid back, okay with other rabbits, Harley was a baby when he met Flash and since they had the occasional meeting, usually just a few sniffs whilst I held both, I actually think I bonded them just before they were neutered (can't remember entirely) but they were an easy bond, quite a lot of humping but they were fine when i gave them some food as a distraction, I'll be honest they were bonded very badly, un-neutered and sharing a hutch after a few 8 hour bonding sessions but that probably shows even more how males can live quite happily together

So get to know the personality of the males before you attempt it. It's probably best with two easy going rabbits or a very easy going and a more dominant. See how each male reacts with others (separated by mesh or something), if either try go for other males they come in contact with (unless the other provoked them) then I personally wouldn't try boy-boy. If they seem fine with other males I'd give it a go, but bond properly, don't do what I did
 
I had a boy-boy bond, they're now a trio with a female (which isn't really recommended) but they're brilliant together :) Both are quite laid back, okay with other rabbits, Harley was a baby when he met Flash and since they had the occasional meeting, usually just a few sniffs whilst I held both, I actually think I bonded them just before they were neutered (can't remember entirely) but they were an easy bond, quite a lot of humping but they were fine when i gave them some food as a distraction, I'll be honest they were bonded very badly, un-neutered and sharing a hutch after a few 8 hour bonding sessions but that probably shows even more how males can live quite happily together

:wave: Bad rabbit bonder over here! When I had a boy x boy pairing (RIP Snowy) we put them together in a neutral territory at my local shelter, we were advised not to continue because of all the humping and biting. But we pushed on anyway and came back a week later to try again, then we brought Toshi home for a trial run. I suppose it might have been best to let Toshi get use to his new surrounding, but instead I put them in my bathroom and petted them. Then I plopped Toshi down in Snowy's hutch (we've since transitioned to a x-pen) and there they stayed. :wave::wave:
 
Oké thanks all! The reason I'm asking is that in the Netherlands most rabbit lovers, rescue centers etc. strongly believe boy/boy and girl/girl are both no-go's. On the girl/girl bonds I agree, since most does aren't spayed (it's far from standerd here) which increases the risks big time obviously. But I strongly believe two neutered boys kan make a very stable couple. As parsnipbun says, in my opinion charactar is far more important than which combination you make.

I've been a volunteer at a rescue for a few years now and have my own bunny-boarding. Recently I started rescueing some rabbits myself. I have seen a few very good boy/boy couples in my boarding now and I am considering to add rehoming boys together to the options. Obviously only when there is a match, but that's always important.

Most of my Dutch 'colleagues' don't agree so I thought I'd better ask here. They don't really base their opinions on experience (this simply is an odd combination in the Netherlands and no rescue would try it themselves) and aren't always very open minded.
 
Oké thanks all! The reason I'm asking is that in the Netherlands most rabbit lovers, rescue centers etc. strongly believe boy/boy and girl/girl are both no-go's. On the girl/girl bonds I agree, since most does aren't spayed (it's far from standerd here) which increases the risks big time obviously. But I strongly believe two neutered boys kan make a very stable couple. As parsnipbun says, in my opinion charactar is far more important than which combination you make.

I've been a volunteer at a rescue for a few years now and have my own bunny-boarding. Recently I started rescueing some rabbits myself. I have seen a few very good boy/boy couples in my boarding now and I am considering to add rehoming boys together to the options. Obviously only when there is a match, but that's always important.

Most of my Dutch 'colleagues' don't agree so I thought I'd better ask here. They don't really base their opinions on experience (this simply is an odd combination in the Netherlands and no rescue would try it themselves) and aren't always very open minded.

I also think boy-boy would be easier in most cases than girl-girl, I know both can get territorial and bite but hormonal females tend to be really grumpy, hormonal males just hump and spray everything (but then again the urge for the males to hump each other often ends up in chasing and them feeling threatened) :lol: It's a shame everyone there seems so against it, maybe you should get everyone on here to send in pictures of groups of males (or ones where the males outnumber the females) to show them how brilliantly they get on? :) My boys get on much better than my mixed pair did :roll:
 
Oké thanks all! The reason I'm asking is that in the Netherlands most rabbit lovers, rescue centers etc. strongly believe boy/boy and girl/girl are both no-go's. On the girl/girl bonds I agree, since most does aren't spayed (it's far from standerd here) which increases the risks big time obviously. But I strongly believe two neutered boys kan make a very stable couple. As parsnipbun says, in my opinion charactar is far more important than which combination you make.

I've been a volunteer at a rescue for a few years now and have my own bunny-boarding. Recently I started rescueing some rabbits myself. I have seen a few very good boy/boy couples in my boarding now and I am considering to add rehoming boys together to the options. Obviously only when there is a match, but that's always important.

Most of my Dutch 'colleagues' don't agree so I thought I'd better ask here. They don't really base their opinions on experience (this simply is an odd combination in the Netherlands and no rescue would try it themselves) and aren't always very open minded.

before I knew about neutering and spaying when I was little we had unspayed females live together very peacefully, they never got hormonal for some reason. so it's possible for unspayed females to be together but it's just the luck of the draw.
 
Ofcourse it's possible and if I would have a very stable girl/girl couple there would be no doubt about rehoming them together. But I would not try to bond two girls myself especially not for rehoming. Even boy/boy (not neutered) can go well together. Not very usual (not at all..) but it does happen.

I think I'm just going to follow my own thought about this and will rehome boys together if the situation happends to be that way. The reason the whole discussion started (this time) is that I have a very very frightend 10 week old boy that obviously is not neutered yet. I believe socializing is easier at a young age but it has prooven itself to be very difficult with this little man. I think bonding him to a very social rabbit is a good idea, but right now he can't be bonded yet, only to a male rabbit his age. I'm going to do that this week, then have them neutered as soon as possible and if they turn out to be a good couple, why not let them stay together if possible..
 
I've bonded my two bunnies in 3 weeks, Millie and Todd.

It was easy to bond them as they got on with other from day one. I think they have done all the bonding themselves as I only sat in the garden to keep watch of them.

It's harder to bond 2 males, 2 females I've heard.

Good luck :)
 
It also depends if you have other rabbits around. If they can see/hear/smell other rabbits a boy/boy bond will be harder.
 
That is what we did notice in the rescue I volunteer at. It's very rare, but it does happen that we get a neutered boy/boy couple. (Think about two/three times that I can remember now) Unfortunately after a few weeks it always went wrong, I think that does have to do with all the other (female..) rabbits around them and also the smaller space. I must say the boy/boy couples that stayed with me for boarding didn't show any signs of that.
 
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