Any Tips For Bonding a Very Jumpy Bunny?

Trudy is about 5 months old and was neutered 7 weeks ago. She was a stay that was handed into the vets so her age and history is unknown.

Since adopting her she has been very jumpy. When you walk into the room where she is, she throws herself around the room in fright. If you make an unexpected noise she also panics.

Tonight we have started to try and bond her with a recently bereft male and she just jumps sky high when he goes near her, making him jump too.

We have been for a car ride where they cuddled for the entire journey but now back on neutral ground she is just scared of any movement or sound.

Any tips?

Thank you

My best advice would be patience, calm and understanding. Everything has to be on the bunnies terms. She may always be a ' nervy' bunny, but I would imagine over time she will become more trusting, confident and then calmer. Patience, time, love and understanding me thinks would work best.

Thank you.

Fingers (and paws) crossed that Rupert understands this too.

Happy new year.

I wonder if she could have some vision or hearing impairment?

I would try swapping scents by transferring items between cages. If she's jumping then neutral territory or swapping her between spaces probably makes her more nervy. It might help to give her 5-10 minutes to explore the neutral space before adding the chap. That lets her check for threats but not make it hers.

Providing some semi-cover might help eg a stool/low table/doctored box so it's not an enclosed space to fight over but feels more enclosed that a room ceiling.

Hay is a good distraction too

When I did my quad bond my 2 boys who are very "wild" were very nervous and jumpy at first. I had hay all over the floor of the bonding area to deaden sounds when they thumped. I fed them a lot of Rosemary, I had an overgrown plant that needed pruning, and I later read somewhere is a calming herb.

Make sure she has a tunnel or similar where she can hide in and feel safer. I wonder if she has a sight problem? Worth checking out although it wasn't spotted during her spay. Good luck with her.

Thank you all for your suggestions. They have been together all night and she has been biting poor Rupert and he is quite scared of her. Thankfully he has not retaliated as yet. We will put a few additional distractions into the area to try and calm her down. At the moment they are on throw (on lino) and when she runs she basically moves the throws into a pile and Rupert is scared of lino!

I think he eye sight is ok, every time I stroke Rupert she runs over and acts very jealous and demands to be stroked.

Oh the joys of bonding.

Thanks again

Try wrapping the edge of the throw in a brick or similar heavy object at each corner - that might hold it in place

Stroking them both whilst they sit together may help anyway as it's a bit of mutual grooming which is a nice bonding activity.