Bonding - help needed!

Hi

I have a male neutered house rabbit Noodle who is approx 10 months old, I have had him since he was a couple of months old. I recently got a female rabbit Honey who is around 15 months old, I have had her speyed and she has had time to recover.

I let Noodle meet Honey before she was speyed to see if they were likely to get on and since then they have lived in cages next to each other and alternated between who is out in the room.

After Honey was speyed I let them meet in a neutral area of the flat and stayed with them for about 20 minutes, my plan was to build up on this however I came to a stale mate and after around 30 minutes each day they would have a bit of a chase and fur would fly and I had to separate them. I could never seem to build the time up.

I read several articles which suggested that I should put them together in a neutral area that was quite small, that I shouldn't touch them and I should only separate them if the fighting got serious and to try using a water bottle first. So today I got a travel cot/playpen which is approx 1.25 metre by 0.75 metre, I've put a litter tray with lots of hay in it, water and some toys.

Noodle and Honey were fine for around 4 hours, it went a great deal better than I expected they were both very relaxed, eating, cleaning and flopping and I could see the benefit of me not touching either of them. However, when Noodle flopped on one occasion Honey grunted at him and head butted him then every time he moved she did the same thing until she started fighting with him, I could not distract them by spraying water, Noodle was trying to get away from her rather than fight her, I picked her up, checked both for injuries and then put her back in. There was another little squabble which I separated but did not remove either. After this they stayed at separate ends and things were more tense for about 10 minutes then Noodle started eating hay and both seemed to relax, they sat next to each other in the litter tray. But then after about 30 minutes Honey started fighting with Noodle again, again the water was not effective and I picked up Noodle, Honey was so determined to bite him that she hung on to him for quite a few seconds before dropping down.

At the moment I've removed Noodle because I don't want to distress either to much or for them to get injured but I don't know what to do next!

Do I put Noodle back in or is Honey saying that she really doesn't like him?

So, I put Noodle back in, I put another litter tray in with hay in case their argument was territorial over the tray. They had another scuffle that I had to separate but didn't seem as intense, but then they had two big fights and I've had to take Noodle out again.

I can't see how this can work now, they were both eyeing each other up between the last two fights and both were aggressive.

I would really appreciate any thoughts or ideas

Hi, when you say fighting, was it full on, lock on fighting? I think an element of chasing/fur flying is normal but you should separate if serious fighting as they can hurt each other.

When I first put my two together it didn't go as smoothly as I hoped and I pretty much ran out of time before I had to go back to work. I left it a few months (solely due to having to take holiday off work again) but in that time they lived side by side and I think that really helped them build up some trust and get to know each other as my second attempt went really well and they pretty much got on straight away.

First attempt I used a water bottle too for when they started chasing but didn't really find it helped but I did then use a broom (obviously carefully) just really to get in between them which seemed to work better....also I did seem to be able to calm then down verbally once they had stopped chasing. I also did really limit the space they had, if they have too much room they can just sit separate. It is really difficult and tough to go through BUT if you can preserve it is so worth it to see two bonded bunnies. I know it is possible for two bunnies to really clash and not get on but hope this isn't the case for you. good luck! x

Initially it was chasing circling and fur pulling. However the last fight they locked on and when I separated them the other clung on.

I know I now need to give them a while to calm down and Honey has a cut just above her eye which needs to heal.

I don't feel confident enough to do this myself so I think I'm going to try and find somebody with experience who can bond them for me.

Thanks for your advice. X