Bonding not progressing- humping and running away. HELP

[Jaffacake]

I have seen similar threads to this, but not one with my exact situation so I thought I'd post afresh. Sorry it's long! I seem to only be able to write long posts!

I have a 7 month old boy called Foxie who was bought with another male rabbit from Pets at Home (not doing that again!). Both were meant to be female as we wouldn't have bought two boys due to the chance of fighting and both were sick with snuffles when we got them. Long story short (already posted the long story somewhere on here...) Merry got very aggressive and died whilst being castrated leaving Foxie alone.

Foxie= loveliest, soppiest, gentlest bunny in the world.

My original vets (not the PaH vets where Merry died) told me that due to the snuffles and the fact his brother died it would be a big risk to get him done and maybe we should make him a house bunny and leave him alone. But he got so sad! He has never shown any sexual behaviour, is always very placid, and his testicles were so badly attacked by his brother they are partly black and misshapen, so I thought bonding with a neutered female might work. When he stopped doing binkys :'( I decided he was far too lonely and we'd just have to get him a friend and hope he wouldn't need neutering.

Bella is a 7 month old female from our local shelter. We paid to have her spayed a month ago, picked her up a few days later and divided the garden so she could recover. We swapped bedding from their hutches, let them see each other, swapped which side of the garden they were on and after 2 weeks we saw them lying either side of the fence next to each other. I thought this must be bunny love, he was doing binkies everywhere on his side, she was doing them all over her side.... so we decided to open the gate and let them together. No aggression at all, they basically seemed to ignore each other or he would walk towards her and when he was a couple of feet away she would run. We thought this would stop soon, but it has been over another 2 weeks and she's no better.

I know I did it wrong! I should have just kept them separate and then done it in a crate after a month, but they were doing so well. And now Bella runs away from us too. She won't let us stroke her or go away at night. I think it's because she's got so in the habit of running away from him all the time. I've been putting time into teaching her that hands are good, and they give you treats and tickles, and she's getting slightly better with me but not with Foxie. Obviously she's a rescue bunny so she's been through a lot and trusting is hard, but I just want her to love us and him!

So I tried the puppy crate neutral space thing, and as soon as she's locked in with him she goes crazy, crashing into the sides and whimpering before he's even done anything. And then he starts humping her, and she tries to run away and then she whimpers more and it was so upsetting! She did bury her face under his chin and just lie still, but then as soon as I stop stroking him he goes for her again. I read different things about whether or not to stop him, and they contradict each other so I tried letting him AND physically stopping him but he didn't stop trying unless I was constantly stroking him and she just kept biting my hand although she flat out refuses to nip him, or try and hump him or show any sort of try for dominance even though she is much bigger and maybe if she did he would quit it.

I am completely at a loss about what I should do next. Tried them in the crate again today and she got just as stressed that I don't know whether it is the right thing to put her in that situation again.

The obvious solution seems to be to get Foxie done, but the risk of losing him terrifies me, especially as we got Bella (although that sounds terrible!).

Gahhh, what do I do next?! What methods should I try? When they are separated in the garden she still tries to get really close to him, so I know she doesn't hate him. And when I put them in the crate and lifted it up she went to him for comfort. They do like each other a lot more than some bunnies do when they first meet. The potential is there!

Please help

 

[Babsie]

A sad story and another thumbs down to P@H.

I really don't think you should proceed with bonding if you don't feel that your boy should be neutered because of his health issues.

Do you have a 'bunny savvy' vet you could take him to for an opinion?

I cannot stress enough that it isn't safe to put them together - his hormones will be raging - and it could lead to serious injury or worse.

 

[tonibun]

Did your bunny get over his snuffles and if so why not ask the Vet if he thinks he is healthy enough to be neutered.

When he was chasing her for 2 weeks, what happened at nighttime. Did you put them back in their own hutches?

 

[Jaffacake]

Thanks for your responses, I really appreciate it

He doesn't chase her all the time, she will wander up to be near him and then he decides to chase her. And he will quite happily flop out in the garden and let her sniff him. It's when they are in smaller areas he gets persistent and she begins to panic and scramble so atm there is no way they could share a hutch. They have never been locked in a hutch together, she wanders in his hutch during the day and sometimes he follows her and she leaves. She spends nights indoors because she doesn't like her outdoor hutch as it's quite small whilst when she's indoors she can run round the kitchen and use her indoor cage. Foxie has a nice big outdoor cage.

Foxie has been on 3 courses of antibiotics and they had no effect. The vet says he'll have chronic snuffles permanently but it's a very weak form, just occasional sneezes so they say he should live a normal happy life. It doesn't effect his behaviour. The only other suggestion was to try holistic therapy if he gets worse for some reason, but I know very little about that.

Where would the danger come from? Would it be her losing patience and attacking him? Neither of them have ever shown any aggression towards each other (except for Foxie's humping), but I could see how it could still end badly. After your advice I think another chat with the vet is in order.

 

[tonibun]

I realise what Babsie means, most bucks would pester the doe continuously resulting in her getting very upset and possibly attacking him. Having said that, a Vet once said that not all bucks are like that so you could only try it and monitor them. It is natural for her to run away for a while until she gets more used to him and it might just work. The other problem though is if a rabbit has snuffles, they can't smell as well as normal rabbits and this could make him more aggressive.

 

[Alexander]

If I was in your position I would want to seek a second opinion from a rabbit specialist vet on the snuffles and the neutering, unless of course Foxie is already seeing a rabbit specialist. Has Foxie had a swab culture done to determine what strain of bacteria is causing his snuffles or did your vet use trial and error with the antibiotics? Even if your vet says the snuffles are mild, they're having quite a serious effect on his quality of life if they're stopping him being neutered and harming his chances of bonding with a friend. If you did decide to get Foxie neutered, I'd want to be sure that I was using a vet who was confident to do the procedure.

 

[Eaj20]

I'm having the same problem although my boy is already neutered and he constantly humps her and she gets really upset and she is constantly running away from him. I'm at the point now where I feel they will never be friends and I'll have to keep them apart for good. Hope your bonding works out better though

 

[Santa]

Where would the danger come from? Would it be her losing patience and attacking him? Neither of them have ever shown any aggression towards each other (except for Foxie's humping), but I could see how it could still end badly. After your advice I think another chat with the vet is in order.

Yes - I don't know if you've seen yours do this but it's not uncommon for them to hump each other's heads not just the 'right' end. If your boy does this, there is a very high chance that your girl could bite his penis which could result in life threatening injuries. More generally, humping is normal during bonding but it does settle down once dominance has been sorted out, but in your case if there are still hormones, it is possible that the humping will carry on and that is when it is likely that the doe will get fed up at some point and start a fight. Finally, having a female partner who keeps running away is likely to result in frustration for the male, and that too could result in a fight.

Personally I would suggest trying an aggressive, long course of antibiotics to try and get the snuffles under control and get him neutered when he is having a good patch. One of my snuffly bunnies used to have regular GA for dentals right up until she was 8 and it never caused a problem, so while I understand that they might not recommend it while he is poorly, I don't think it should be impossible to do for his overall best interests. Good luck x