Bonding a slightly territorial rabbit

I have a 2,5 year old neutered male Rex, who have been an only rabbit for about a year. I don’t want Dunder to be alone since rabbits are such social animals so two weeks ago I brought home a female Lop cross, now about 11 weeks old. I am planning to spay her when she gets older. I hope they will become friends in the future and have started introducing them to each other slowly. They live in a run each, with wire mesh in between them (indoors).

In the beginning Dunder (the male) was very interested in this new creature on the other side of the wire mesh and followed her up and down the run when she moved around. Alba (the female) did not care much about him at all. He calmed down after a while and now they sometimes sniff each other through the bars.

At the moment I let them meet once a day in a neutral area by letting her run around freely and keeping him on a harness and leash, as a safety precaution. At the moment she is only a third of his size. They mostly ignore each other which I take as a good sign. Alba is a very calm young lady and keeps asking for cuddles. Dunder comes up to her from time to time and sometimes they both put their heads forward to get cuddles, but then they just go their separate ways. Dunder can be quite territorial at times and sometimes he just nips her in the side when he comes up to her. When he does this I put him some distance away from her and let them go about their business. Mostly she doesn’t move away when he nips her.

I hope they will find each other to be good company in time and I think that with enough space and recourses most rabbits can get along, but does anyone have experience with bonding more territorial rabbits?

To be honest he doesn't sound that territorial to me. If they are being territorial they will just go strait for each other and start biting, not a nice thing.

Ideally to bond them you want to take them somewhere neither of them have been before and introduce them there. You then monitor them very closely for a few days but do not separate them unless they actually fight. You've got to let them chase each other and allow for a bit of frisky behaviour. Once that dies down you can move them into their permanent home. From what you've said it sounds quite promising that they will get along.

Thank you for your reply I think it's going pretty well to, to be honest. I felt I wanted some input since it's my first time bonding in quite some time.

I've had them in the hallway when they have met over the past few days (where non of them has been before) and Alba has not moved around so much until today so Dunder has had the run of the hallway. Dunder got a bit cranky today when she started to move around more and also tried to lash out at her at times (altough I held him back using the harness). I interpreted this as territoriality, but hopefully it's not unsolvable. I think I will wait until she is a little bigger though before I dare to let them both run freely, since I'm afraid she has little chance of defending herself because of the size difference at the moment.

Just make sure you have one area that remains completely neutral for bonding them. Try and keep them both away from that area completely until you are ready to start bonding them properly.

I will. Thank you for your advice

I wouldn't worry about size difference
This is my two
L

Well size doesn't matter, but age does. I wouldn't try bonding until she is neutered and settled.

Like Stator says it's also the age difference that worries me a little. Alba is still a baby and mostly just wants cuddles and Dunder seems to be a little defensive just in case. I will probably wait until she is a little older before I try to bond them properly. At the moment they live in a run each with wire mesh in between them.

Thank you both for your input