Bonding - Possible before doe is spayed? Any advice?

Hi all,

We've just adopted a little girl called Luna (for more info, see my Intro post). Somewhat stupidly, we didn't really realise how big a deal actually bonding is. We're fully prepared to provide a 'territory' for each of them if they decide they don't really like each other.

After doing some real research, I wondered whether anyone had some advice.

I know that the 'bonding' session should be done on neutral ground, and will take about a week to complete (providing it all goes to plan). Unfortunately, our first fur baby, Gandalf, has always had access to the entire downstairs of our home, although he's only been upstairs once. So my plan is this...

• We wait until Luna has been spayed and given time to heal and feel strong again.
• Once Luna is able to stand her ground, we take both rabbits upstairs to a neutral confined area (maybe with a thoroughly cleaned small hutch attached, for toileting and safety if we need to leave the room for any reason)
• The rabbits will stay there, providing they're not ripping each other to bits, while we build the permanent huge hutch for the two of them downstairs.
• We keep our fingers crossed.

I'm sure some of you have some bonding horror stories, and I'm 100% sure that someone will be angry with our naivety and ignorance regarding bonding and the seriousness of keeping rabbits. Please know that generally speaking, we wouldn't have picked up another rabbit without more planning beforehand, but little Luna's future wasn't looking so great. And I couldn't walk away and leave her. Also, we love our little ones more than anything and our lives revolve around them, we're new to being fur baby parents and we're still learning, so any advice you can give us will be welcome.

I'm really just wondering whether anyone has any practical advise on how we can make the bonding go well. If they don't get on, thats fine, we'll give them homes separately, its just a worst nightmare that somebody gets hurt.

Thank you in advance

You're doing everything right :wave:

Best thing I have come across recently re. bonding is this:

http://youtu.be/d7QOKF5lDXU

Good luck

Hi there and welcome to the forum! It's lovely to hear you have got your Gandolph a friend as they're usually much happier with a rabbit companion. Boys are not generally as territorial as girls so he should accept Luna much quicker than if it were the other way around. How old is Luna?

Hi,
Luna is 16 weeks, so she'll have another month or so until we can even consider having her spayed.
Gandalf has recently turned 1 and is neutered already

Sorry I spelled his name wrong! You can try bonding them now - it's entirely up to you of course. This will prevent her from becoming territorial over her space and opinionated over him. When she is spayed at around 6 months it will assist her recovery if she has her friend to come back to.

Thats ok lol! Nobody ever does

The vet said that Gandalf would likely hump her even though he's been done because of her hormones, they said it would scare her really badly and she wouldn't want to be his friend anymore. I just don't know...

Have you had any experience with a neutered male and a not neutered female?

I won't lie, it would be easier if we could try to bond them earlier than August/September, which is 6-8 weeks after she can be spayed :?

Mounting could happen anyway with her neutered. It's a way to assert dominance (dominant will do the mounting). I have two female house buns and my dominant female (Daphne) will mount the sub (Phoebe) on a fairy regular basis. Phoebe will normally just move away, or she'll run and wait patiently somewhere else for dinner to be spread on the floor.

You can spay early. Daphne was spayed at 4 months with no apparent problems. She's developed as a normal rabbit.
Phoebe was spayed at 3 months and I believe it was too early personally as she's developing a bit slower than she should but we didn't have much choice because of her behaviour.

I know some people who have neutered males with unneutered females and it is the boys who suffer more when the girls get there hormone surge in spring. They get bullied and all sorts poor boys.

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Luna seems really placid, I think her time 'out the back' of the pet shop probably helped as I don't think she had any choice but to share her space and/or allow humans to move her around a lot etc.

From what you've said, about them PMS'ing in spring, do you think we could possibly bond them now? Is it technically summer in the rabbit hormone cycle now? Only as Ive seen that going to the vets etc can be a lot easier on them if they are coming home to their friend.

I genuinely never realised how rewarding and challenging rabbits could be as pets. Everyone just assumes they're 'simple' pets, but the more I learn about them, the more interesting they are!

Yep, I'm still learning after having rabbits for 18 years. And lots of bunnies, not just 1 or 2. They are very complex creatures and there is a lot more to them than what a lot of folk think. So I would say bond now before she starts to get hormonal, although some bunnies don't get very hormonal, you might be lucky. Please let us know what you decide.

I'd attempt to bond now. If they bond before her spay, it's advised he goes with her to the vets and is with her after recovery etc to help preserve the bond.

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Our vet has said to try now too so I think we will. How long do you think we should be around before it's safe to assume they will be ok?
I only ask as we both work in emergency insurance so we don't really get weekends and will have to book some time off


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CharlotteAnwen said:

Our vet has said to try now too so I think we will. How long do you think we should be around before it's safe to assume they will be ok?
I only ask as we both work in emergency insurance so we don't really get weekends and will have to book some time off


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Depends on them really. They could take to each other and be fine within a week. Or they could take a few months.

I started with just a weekend with my bonding.

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Thanks Daphnephoebe, can you put them together over a weekend then separate them? Or do they have to stay together constantly?
Just worried about safety of we need to go back to work :/


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CharlotteAnwen said:

Thanks Daphnephoebe, can you put them together over a weekend then separate them? Or do they have to stay together constantly?
Just worried about safety of we need to go back to work :/


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I'm not as experienced in bonding but you'd need to play it by ear so to speak.

If they haven't had any fights, you have mutual grooming and they're relaxed together you should be okay.

If there is no grooming, they're not relaxing or there is fur pulling, chasing etc I'd separate.

If you're due a week off work maybe do that so you can feel more confident?

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Yeah, I think we may try them one weekend and then if they're not grooming and stuff then we will separate and try to get a week off


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They probably won'r groom each other unless you aren't around. The boy will chase the girl for the first day or two, this is normal.

Hi! Not an expert but thought I'd let you know about my (successful) bonding experience recently.
Frank, neutered male, around 9 months old has been neutered since 3 months old. After recovery we tried to bond him with a 7 different bunnies (we tried male AND female!) without any success.
I felt so disheartened until someone suggested trying with an UNneutered female. In comes Olive, 4 months old, not neutered.
Rather than his usual response to try and fight the other bunny- Frank immediately mounted her
After doing this a couple of times and a bit of fur pulling from him (her reaction was to just sit and ignore him she never retaliated) he gave up after about 6 tries at 15 minute bonding sessions over 2 days and suddenly decided he loved her.
They've been living together happily for around 2 weeks now and Olive still isn't neutered as isnt old or big enough yet

Aahhh, we started the bonding process this morning. We don't have a car so taking them for a drive beforehand wasn't an option, however we've had to turn the Hoover on a couple of times as they seemed to be having full on scuffles. Lots of fur flying but no injuries. The Hoover is just to make them separate (it's nowhere near them, they're just not keen on the sudden noise).

The next 3 days are going to be interesting.


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Ps. We aren't planning on giving up just yet. At the moment they are ignoring each other, which is better than nothing. If it doesn't work we'll separate and try again after she's been spayed.



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We recently bonded a new male with our two previous females (all neutered/spayed) and it took the grand total of 6 days before they were happily hopping round the living room together. (Happened by accident to be honest he got out while I was topping up his bowl) bit to bond them we used to swap the cages they were in so the cage the girls slept in at night he would stay on for half the day and they would have access to the one he had slept in then we would put the girls back in their own cage and he would wander and have access to the cage they had used all day. The cages were also kept close together so they could always smell each other. Have now been together nearly 6 months living together around 5ish and are totally inseparable.
This is probably totally different to what you are going through but may be surprised at how cooperative your bunnies might be
Good Luck

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