BlazeNFlash
New Kit
I have a 8 month old neutered male rabbit (junior) a 3 year old just spayed female (thumper) and an 8 year old un-neutered male (homer). Homer and thumper already love to hang out outside each others cages and will whisker kiss through the bars. Thumper likes to lay outside his cage and sleep, but we have not been able to let them get any face to face time because homer is not fixed and thumper was only fixed a week ago. Jr was fixed about 7-8 weeks ago and seems to have settled hormonally into a well behaved little bunny. Homer is not able to be fixed for health reasons but he has a very calm even temperament. Thumper is a little on the shy side unless we are eating something she wants (eg apple or banana), when things dont go 'her' way she tends to get very angry and usually jumps to boxing and grunting/growling though this is usually because we are not opening the door to her cage fast enough or she doesnt like us checking her cage while she's inside. while out of her cage she is calm and never attacks or grunts unless we provoke it by inadvertently threatening her (we never harm our rabbits and i have read much on rabbit body language to know when it is my fault for making her feel she needs to defend herself though this very seldom happens anymore as we now better understand her but we are also aware she can go from uncertain to angry very quickly) jr is very strongly bonded to me, after his mother died i took over raising him and i do my best to behave like his surrogate rabbit mother. hes very energetic and curious loves to lay down where he knows we want to sit but enjoys our company, we have started to catch him grooming homers stuffed rabbit (it smells a lot like homer) and began to wonder if a bond between the two males might be possible as jr is no longer aggressive though he can be nervous sometimes because his mother once attacked him when he was a baby so i think he fears other rabbits will suddenly turn on him. we attempted to bond thumper once before with her mother (blaze) who immediately set to grooming her daughter and laying with her completely relaxed, but thumper (again then un-spayed) kept spraying her mother with pee and moving away from her. homer was once bonded with one of our other females and was deeply heartbroken when she died. our hope is that since homer and thumper show positive signs through the bars that they could be bonded (once thumper is healed) making homer much happier and giving thumper a companion which she seems to now want. we also hope that thumper could be bonded with jr because jr seems desperately to want a bunny companion despite his fears. and if a bond between homer and jr is possible then perhaps we could consider a trio which would allow them all to play together especially homer who is the most lonely for having been bonded once. i have a neutral location picked out at my mother in laws house in her bathroom which is a small enough location that with my bf's help would be easy to introduce them without allowing any fights to occur and injure anyone. its not too long a car ride but i hoped a short one would unsettle them just enough to encourage the bonding as i have read that it can. so i guess my question is in a month once thumper is nicely healed and her hormones decreased would either pair or trio be possible and is there anything i should change from my plan? i plan to put down a blanket in the bathroom since our bunnies don't like slippery floors but if puttinng them on uncertain footing would be better i am open to advice.
