Our male mini lop is about 1.5 years old, female about 9 months, both have been neutered now, the male last year, female a about a month ago. Their initial introduction didn't go that great, it wasn't so much the hair pulling or so called 'normal' bonding activity, more about the female weeing all over the floor, and at some point my other half decided she'd had enough of this so we separated them. To be fair that was before the neutering. So this time round we decided to do it by the book: Get her neutered, wait, then try again.
So now I have the house to myself for a week, I decided why not try some bunny bonding? I cleared out the kitchen, and setup the run indoors, put the female into the run, so he could get used to her. I made sure he could get all the way round, because when we put the run up against the wall, he always wants to get into the gap between run and wall, like he needs to go all the way around her. This was setup Monday midday. Tuesday I let the female out a few times while I was watching. When things got a bit heated I kind-of guided the male away to give her a bit of space. I'm not sure if I'm supposed to do that. He is not aggressive with me so I didn't need to wear any gloves or anything, I just have to act like I'm about to pick him up and he scarpers. I swapped them round a couple of times so he went in the run and her outside although I didn't leave things like that overnight because she's not very tidy with droppings and I'm also concerned about the aforementioned weeing issue. Inside the run she is mercifully weeing in her litter tray even if a lot of her droppings don't make it there. Today I let them both out for a longer period. There was some chasing, but they seem mostly calm. He seems to have stopped nipping now and I think the chasing is just that.
So I'm leading up to two questions:
1) In this environment is it possible that putting her in the run overnight is now a backward step and can undo progress so far?
2) Do you think I'm ready to leave them overnight mixing freely?
I have until Sunday to either wrap this up or abort it because I need to get the kitchen back in a usable state for the family, thanks for any advice!
James.
So now I have the house to myself for a week, I decided why not try some bunny bonding? I cleared out the kitchen, and setup the run indoors, put the female into the run, so he could get used to her. I made sure he could get all the way round, because when we put the run up against the wall, he always wants to get into the gap between run and wall, like he needs to go all the way around her. This was setup Monday midday. Tuesday I let the female out a few times while I was watching. When things got a bit heated I kind-of guided the male away to give her a bit of space. I'm not sure if I'm supposed to do that. He is not aggressive with me so I didn't need to wear any gloves or anything, I just have to act like I'm about to pick him up and he scarpers. I swapped them round a couple of times so he went in the run and her outside although I didn't leave things like that overnight because she's not very tidy with droppings and I'm also concerned about the aforementioned weeing issue. Inside the run she is mercifully weeing in her litter tray even if a lot of her droppings don't make it there. Today I let them both out for a longer period. There was some chasing, but they seem mostly calm. He seems to have stopped nipping now and I think the chasing is just that.
So I'm leading up to two questions:
1) In this environment is it possible that putting her in the run overnight is now a backward step and can undo progress so far?
2) Do you think I'm ready to leave them overnight mixing freely?
I have until Sunday to either wrap this up or abort it because I need to get the kitchen back in a usable state for the family, thanks for any advice!
James.