bonding!!!

Hello

After much searching on the net I am trying to work out how hard bonding can be?!:?

I am hopefully in the process of arranging to adopt a lovely female lop who I will bond with my nearly one year old, Peter

I had intended on sending them both to a boarding place that have a bonding service but am now wondering whether its something I could have a shot at ?!

1) Peter is neutered and the bun I'm looking at adopting is being spayed this week. I'm not 100% on timings yet but I'm assuming we might start looking into adoption in the next couple of weeks. Is there a limit to how early a newly spayed female can be bonded with a male (Pete was neutered last sept).

2) Our set up - Pete is normally an outdoor bun with a 6ft hutch and soon to get an 8ft run (not attached - this is in plans for summer!). However currently he is indoors and has use of a large (roughly 4ftx3ft) dog crate with a puppy pen attached. The dog crate has a facility to be split down the middle with a divider.

I have a fair amount of spare time as I'm a stay at home mum so can do plenty of supervised sessions with them. I'll be totally honest though, I'm not the bravest of people

What would you recommend? given my set up what would you do? Could I, very short term, have one bun in the dog crate (with door closed) and one bun in the puppy pen? so they can be close to each other? Would I need to neutralise it?

Help please, I need the idiots guide to bunny bonding :lol:

Hi hon,

I bonded my rabbits so can be done as long as you have the time and knowledge of signs to look for to be worried about .not as hard as you think just takes some space a bit of nerve and good pair of gloves. Will post more in morning, see my prev posts xx

Thanks fluffs mum I shall have a look at your posts

As your present rabbit is a male, it should be easier to introduce a female but if she has only just been spayed I would keep her away from Peter until she is ready to meet him. Then it is just a case of putting her with him and after some chasing etc they should settle down together. Putting them side by side might just cause problems. When she has been neutered for about a month you can introduce them, but always put the boy in first

wishing you the very best of luck.. I tried it but didn't have the nerves of steel and ability to read the signs properly.

good luck... Will be worth it in the end...

fee x

I bonded my Neutered male with a 10 week old doe with no problems at all. Not sure if it would be harder the older they are but I found putting in the bath together as a good tip as they bond better if both on edge as they look to each other for comfort. As mine are house bunnies i kept her in a cage and he was free in the same room so they got used to the smells and sighs of each other first for a few days.

I am actually about to face the exact same situation. :shock:

Benji is neutered and has been for months, but the new girl I'm getting in a couple of weeks will only just have been spayed.

The advice I was given is to definitely NOT put them together when you first get the new girl, but allow them to still have contact with one another. I'm going to put both of the runs next to each other, as to begin with they will have one run each, and once they are bonded they will have one big run. You're meant to allow them to communicate but through the mesh, so that they can't do each other any damage. I honestly don't know the wrong signs, but I'm just going to do my best, and hopefully they will bond fine. I've been told that the majority of times, a male and female bond absolutely fine.

my problem was , the initial introduction at the rescue went very very well, there was a long journey home in the carrier, however, when the arrived home in the small halfed run, which I had thoroughly neutralised, Willow became very aggressive and feisty and just would stop lunging for Smudge. Had to separate them. On trying again, same again, smudge was hiding and wouldn't come out. the rescue are doing my bonding now and suspect that Willow recognised and became overly protective of her 'space'

second time lucky,,

all the best... i admire anyone who attempts and has a successful bonding process, it's very stressful...

Think its also a good thing to swap them into each others cage/hutch everyother day and to let them use each others feed bowls and the like to get them used to being in each others territory

Jojo123 said:

Think its also a good thing to swap them into each others cage/hutch everyother day and to let them use each others feed bowls and the like to get them used to being in each others territory

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My Benji is going to be too big to fit in his mates hutch. :lol:

Just looked at Benjis pics hes lovely! People think im a bit mad that i let my bunny be freerange glad to see someone else has a litter tray and a bunny running around the house!

Jojo123 said:

Just looked at Benjis pics hes lovely! People think im a bit mad that i let my bunny be freerange glad to see someone else has a litter tray and a bunny running around the house!

Click to expand...

Haha, well it was never the intention when I first got him to be honest! :lol:
He does have a children's playhouse and two runs outside, but I felt so sorry for him being outside in winter that I was desperate to let him stay inside.
I'm only 21 so I still live with my Dad, so I've been very lucky that my he's been good with Benji and let me bring him in. But I get the same reaction, when my mum comes round or my grandparents, they can't believe we just let him run around. I thought I was odd as well, because he doesn't have a cage or anything. Litter training has been a bit tricky, he occasionally has mishaps as well. :shock:
He has free range of three rooms, he can't get in the kitchen or the conservatory because the floor is laminated and he slips all over. :lol: