trying to bond two female rabbits

Hello,

This is my first post and I'm hoping for some advice to get my two female rabbits to bond. They are 5 and 8 months old and spayed.

We've had them for 2 weeks now, and put them together on neutral territory every day. At first the younger kept nipping the older and chase it a little bit, but the older would just avoid her and nothing else much happened. Then today they were sitting together and eat and the older started grooming the younger. I thought great, finally we're getting somewhere. But then the older mounted the younger which took me by surprise, I thought only males did that (I realise my mistake now) so I didn't know what to do. The bottom bunny didn't seem to mind at first but then seconds later a fight broke lose. I quickly shouted and banged on the floor which stopped it. But now I don't know what best to do, this was the first time they really fought so it seems worse than when they started. I was also confused because I thought the younger who was doing the nipping wanted to be dominant but I guess now it's the older one being dominant. I let them sniff each other after this but then put them back in their separate cages because I was worried they might have another fight.

What do you think, is this normal after 2 weeks? Anything I can do better? The younger one is generally very timid by the way, she hides and doesn't want to be stroked. The older one is much more tame and comes when called.

Anyway, any advice would be appreciated.

Thanks a lot,
Andie

How small is the area that they are in? I would go with a small area and keep them together 24/7 if you can, with you watching them the whole time. This can accelerate the process as they need to interact with each other. I stop fights, but then place them together and stroke them so that they calm down smelling and cuddling each other. I then let them "wake up" still next to each other. Females can be challenging to bond, but it's good that they are both spayed. How long ago were they spayed? If it's less than two weeks then that could be your problem and I would wait until their hormone levels have gone down. I do find that some bonds go like this, with them avoiding each other and then eventually becoming confident enough to interact. In fact I think they all do but some wizz through the avoidance stage!

FondueKid said:

How small is the area that they are in? I would go with a small area and keep them together 24/7 if you can, with you watching them the whole time. This can accelerate the process as they need to interact with each other. I stop fights, but then place them together and stroke them so that they calm down smelling and cuddling each other. I then let them "wake up" still next to each other. Females can be challenging to bond, but it's good that they are both spayed. How long ago were they spayed? If it's less than two weeks then that could be your problem and I would wait until their hormone levels have gone down. I do find that some bonds go like this, with them avoiding each other and then eventually becoming confident enough to interact. In fact I think they all do but some wizz through the avoidance stage!

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Thanks for your quick reply. I tried various sized areas from a big box (lots of nipping) to a 6x4m room (almost no interaction), the last one yesterday was in a 4x4m room which I thought went well until the mouting followed by the fight. During the day one is in a 1x2m cage, the other has the whole room, and I swap them over. They do sniff each other through the bars.

The younger rabbit is very timid so I can't stroke it, it doesn't let me come close enough, so that makes it more difficult to sit them next to each other since that one will always run away from me. I hope it will get used to me a bit more with time but I thought it would be more important for the rabbits to become used to each other first.

They are rescue rabbits so I'm not sure exactly when they were spayed but they told us 3 weeks ago they were already spayed so it must have been at least that long.

Thank you,
Andie

It can be tough with same-sex rabbits as there is more of a hierarchy, whereas boy-girl matches are less about that.

Both sexes mount during bonding, but it's the circling/chasing that usually ends in fighting. They need enough space not to be a threat but not so much they end up with two separate spaces, it sounds like the latest room worked out best so stick with that.

They need time together to work things out, but obviously you don't want harm either, so your going to need to separate them sometimes so you can have a break safely. I would try and supervise them closely, mounting is ok, but step it if there are signs it's going to turn into a fight. Distracting them with a big pile of hay (not dry food) may help, as grazing together is good bonding.

You could also see if a rescue or boarder nearby does bonding and could help you out, sometimes the completely neutral space + lots of experience makes things much easier.

Tamsin said:

It can be tough with same-sex rabbits as there is more of a hierarchy, whereas boy-girl matches are less about that.

Both sexes mount during bonding, but it's the circling/chasing that usually ends in fighting. They need enough space not to be a threat but not so much they end up with two separate spaces, it sounds like the latest room worked out best so stick with that.

They need time together to work things out, but obviously you don't want harm either, so your going to need to separate them sometimes so you can have a break safely. I would try and supervise them closely, mounting is ok, but step it if there are signs it's going to turn into a fight. Distracting them with a big pile of hay (not dry food) may help, as grazing together is good bonding.

You could also see if a rescue or boarder nearby does bonding and could help you out, sometimes the completely neutral space + lots of experience makes things much easier.

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I just noticed that my reply got lost somehow so I'll try again. Meanwhile I had tried them together again on the slippery bathroom floor to make any chasing more difficult. I didn't know about the hay being better so I had scattered dry food around the room, that worked quite well, or at least they didn't fight since they were distracted by food, although they did come very close to each other and sniffed each other. Then I tried the same again the next day but there was some nipping so I didn't leave them for too long. Now I notice though that they seem to try and bite through the cage bars which hadn't happened before, and there was some fur around the cage, so I kind of wonder if they will ever get on. One of them is also still very scared of me, not sure if that comes into it as well, ie it doesn't seem very settled overall. I don't really know why since I didn't even try and pick it up or do anything to it that it didn't like (other than shout to stop the fighting).

I don't know of anywhere that would do bonding for you, I didn't even know that existed...

I've just used a Bonder for my two rabbits and they are due to come home again after the weekend ) I found it really difficult to find people, however I googled rabbit bonder and searched through a great many boarders to find places that bond.

I wonder if the fact that they kind of share the same space during the day may be causing an issue, as they both may see the whole room as their territory and think the other bun is in it.
I've tried the 'date' bonding method, but I now prefer the together 24/7 method. I recently bonded a trio by this method which was an easy bond, but I have had a tricky pair bond in the past which was resolved by changing to the 24/7 method, in a fairly small neutral area - 2 foot x 3 foot corner of the kitchen, no litter trays, just puppy pads on the Lino, and a big pile of hay, and two water bowls/bottles. I had to spend two nights sleeping on the kitchen floor with them before I felt confident enough to be more than a few feet away, and the whole bond took about two weeks, but it worked out in the end.
Good luck. It is very stressful, but worth it in the end, hang in there.

Karen's said:

I wonder if the fact that they kind of share the same space during the day may be causing an issue, as they both may see the whole room as their territory and think the other bun is in it.
I've tried the 'date' bonding method, but I now prefer the together 24/7 method. I recently bonded a trio by this method which was an easy bond, but I have had a tricky pair bond in the past which was resolved by changing to the 24/7 method, in a fairly small neutral area - 2 foot x 3 foot corner of the kitchen, no litter trays, just puppy pads on the Lino, and a big pile of hay, and two water bowls/bottles. I had to spend two nights sleeping on the kitchen floor with them before I felt confident enough to be more than a few feet away, and the whole bond took about two weeks, but it worked out in the end.
Good luck. It is very stressful, but worth it in the end, hang in there.

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What do you do in this 24/7 method when they start fighting and biting though, do you try and keep them away from each other? I can't quite imagine how that works... I'm quite worried about putting them together at all now, since the last couple of times fur was flying and I separated them again. I see what you mean about sharing the same space during the day, I had wondered about that too, but I thought if I put them in different rooms then they can't even see or smell each other, and if I let one always have the cage and the other always have the room then that would be quite unfair...

Yes you have to intervene and stop any actual fights, or bunny boxing, I just had some oven gloves on hand and sat right with them, but luckily I had only had one bought of bunny boxing, and only one actual fight if I remember correctly, but my two did a lot of nipping each other and humping each other but mostly I just let them as long as i didn't feel it was too much or some bun was getting stressed. Then I again would just get between them and keep them apart for a few minutes. This only lasted a couple of days as the benefit of the 24/7 method is they mostly get the hierarchy worked out within a day or two, and then they gradually become more comfortable in the pair and settle down and the nipping, humping and chasing gets less and less frequent.
Bonding is so difficult to give advice on as each bond is different, and I think you do have to follow your instincts.
In the meanwhile could you move the cage to another room so they can still swap over but can't see each other in 'their' territory?

I just saw that my last message on this thread didn't come through again. I talked to the rescue centre where the rabbits came from in the end since they started fighting almost immediately every time. They didn't think it would work out between the two rabbits any time soon and suggested we should 'swap' one of them for a boy rabbit that came in meanwhile. It felt quite heartless but we did that, I think all 3 rabbits involved are probably happier now so hopefully that was a good thing to do. The one we took back didn't really seem settled anyway and they thought she might be better off in a household without children for instance. They tried the other rabbit with the 'new boy' and they seemed to get on well so we took him home instead. I started another thread meanwhile since now of course I have to bond these two instead. So far that's going much better though.

Male/female bonds are usually the easiest, then male/male and then ... female/female. Always exceptions ofcourse. Glad you were able to find a solution. Lets hope they bond nice and easily for you!

Yes, looking good so far, much easier indeed.

PS: I love your rabbit 'Mottle' especially (I saw the picture on your other thread)

Andie said:

Yes, looking good so far, much easier indeed.

PS: I love your rabbit 'Mottle' especially (I saw the picture on your other thread)

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Thank you. Mottle is rather beautiful x