How to look after two rabbits that wont bond?

Hello,

after having oscar for just under a year we decided toet her a friend as she seemed to wonder the house rather lonely. now we have and they are not the best of friends. their cages live next to eachother and when tilly is out she will often lay next oscars cage. However oscar had her spay done last week and now she is getting better. but she has had o stay in her cae for a week.....vets orders. i have just put tilly away and let oscar room free around our big living room/hallway and tilly is going mad.....they cant be out togeher because they fight? i want 2 fun adventorous house buns, but at the moment oscar upset when tilly is roaming around and then when i put tilly away and let oscar tilly gets really mad.....we live ina flat (quite big) but only a lare living area and kitchen combined for the rabbtis to run aropund in. what do i do?

hi there, you need to follow a bonding process which involves allowing them to have supervised playtime out together in an area of the house neither of them have been in i.e. the bathroom/bedroom.

The problem you have at the moment is that Tilly sees this area as her territory and for now all she is interested in doing is protecting that area from strange rabbits....hence the aggression.

If you get both your bunnies and let them play in the bedroom/bathroom for about 10 mins a day twice if you can supervised and see how they go. If any aggression/fighting starts separate them straight away and put them back in their cages.

Do this each day and if they appear to get along keep increasing it until you can leave them with no aggression.

When you want to put them together downstairs clean the area/litter trays really well and if you can move things around a bit then try to let them both out. Hopefully Tilly will then accept her friend.

Take your time and progress slowly. Dont try to rush the bond as if they fight you could be back to square one and have to start again. Also another tip is to stroke their heads while they are next to each other as it makes them trust one another. Good luck!

Also if your bun was only spayed last week then her hormones will be going berserk right now. You need to wait for a few weeks to give them a chance to calm down before trying to bond them.

Hele said:

Also if your bun was only spayed last week then her hormones will be going berserk right now. You need to wait for a few weeks to give them a chance to calm down before trying to bond them.

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I agree, they say it takes about 6 weeks for their hormones to settle and I've also heard people say they get worse just after a spay, before they begin to settle down. When I had Shimmer spayed I'm sure it was more than the 6 weeks before the hormonal behaviour disappeared completely (or maybe it just felt like more!).

I'd wait at least another 5 weeks, don't let them out together before that, then start the bonding process. There are some great guides on this forum in the stickies and an abundance of advice from other rabbit owners should you need it. Good luck