Trufflesmum
Young Bun
Apologies in advance for the long winded post. I've tried to capture my thoughts about bonding a trio. Have I missed anything, either positive or negative? I want to make sure I've really thought this through before making a decision.
I have 4 buns - 3 outdoors and one indoors. With regards to the outdoor buns, I have a bonded female/male pair,Truffles and Piccolo, who have been bonded for about a year (we bonded them ourselves with a lot of help from this forum) and a single female Willow who we recently rescued. We have little background history on her but she is in good health, she seems a really chilled out rabbit and is due to be spayed next week. Our original plan was to get her spayed and then find her a husbun at a Rescue Centre, but after the lady who looks after our rabbits when we go away suggested we bonded them all together, we are now contemplating bonding her to Truffles and Piccolo. I've been doing some reading on multiple bondings and realise it could all go horribly wrong and the original bond could be disrupted but I think there are some good reasons to do so:
1) Piccolo, our male rabbit we got from the RSPCA is significantly older than the girls (they thought he was about 5/6). Truffles is 18 months old and the vet reckons Willow is between 1 & 3, so if anything happens to Piccolo, Truffles would still have a companion.
2) Although both set ups have ample space now, if they were all bonded and I joined up their two set ups, they would have a huge amount of space.
3) Both set ups are on my patio and although at first I shielded their view of each other with plants and tubs, I've removed these so they can see each other. There has been no aggression or referred aggression and I've noticed that they often sit at the far end of their runs which means they are at the closest point to each other. I'm seeing this as faintly positive although I realise rabbits may behave differently when in together.
Negative points
1) it could disrupt the bond between Truffles and Piccolo.
2) Truffles is probably the most difficult of all our rabbits. I got her off Gumtree as she wasn't wanted as the kids had a new drum kit! That was her second home at only six months. Needless to say she is quite hypervigilant, although bonding her to Piccolo was relatively easy and without aggression. She was just terrified of him at first. Piccolo is really placid and a bit of a snooze bucket. Not sure how Truffles will take to Willow.
3) the plans don't include Nala, the indoor rabbit, but she was poorly with stasis in May and so we're not in a hurry to get her spayed or outdoors.
4) the stress of going through bonding again!
Thank you.
I have 4 buns - 3 outdoors and one indoors. With regards to the outdoor buns, I have a bonded female/male pair,Truffles and Piccolo, who have been bonded for about a year (we bonded them ourselves with a lot of help from this forum) and a single female Willow who we recently rescued. We have little background history on her but she is in good health, she seems a really chilled out rabbit and is due to be spayed next week. Our original plan was to get her spayed and then find her a husbun at a Rescue Centre, but after the lady who looks after our rabbits when we go away suggested we bonded them all together, we are now contemplating bonding her to Truffles and Piccolo. I've been doing some reading on multiple bondings and realise it could all go horribly wrong and the original bond could be disrupted but I think there are some good reasons to do so:
1) Piccolo, our male rabbit we got from the RSPCA is significantly older than the girls (they thought he was about 5/6). Truffles is 18 months old and the vet reckons Willow is between 1 & 3, so if anything happens to Piccolo, Truffles would still have a companion.
2) Although both set ups have ample space now, if they were all bonded and I joined up their two set ups, they would have a huge amount of space.
3) Both set ups are on my patio and although at first I shielded their view of each other with plants and tubs, I've removed these so they can see each other. There has been no aggression or referred aggression and I've noticed that they often sit at the far end of their runs which means they are at the closest point to each other. I'm seeing this as faintly positive although I realise rabbits may behave differently when in together.
Negative points
1) it could disrupt the bond between Truffles and Piccolo.
2) Truffles is probably the most difficult of all our rabbits. I got her off Gumtree as she wasn't wanted as the kids had a new drum kit! That was her second home at only six months. Needless to say she is quite hypervigilant, although bonding her to Piccolo was relatively easy and without aggression. She was just terrified of him at first. Piccolo is really placid and a bit of a snooze bucket. Not sure how Truffles will take to Willow.
3) the plans don't include Nala, the indoor rabbit, but she was poorly with stasis in May and so we're not in a hurry to get her spayed or outdoors.
4) the stress of going through bonding again!
Thank you.
