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Trio Bonding. U/D p15&18 with pics!

BattleKat

Wise Old Thumper
Mac is currently 4 weeks post neuter. At 6 weeks I'm intending to do the usual "put them in a small neutral space and see what happens", but for now I've moved the girls in to the living room to live side by side with him. When I'm not home they have their own pens with a substantial gap in between, when I'm home they've got half the living room each to run about.

Rambo tried to scratch him through the bars of the pen (he just sat there and let her) so I've got a double fence there now and she's lost interest. He spent a little while grunting at her and there's been some thumping on his part but now he's just sat at the fence looking forlorn. Lola is, as usual, staying well out of everything.

I know this isn't the recommended way of doing things, but side-by-side worked well for me last time, they were practically bonded by the time we put them together.

I know lola won't be a problem, and Mac's so easy going I think he'll be fine, but Rambo is a feisty little bun who enjoys rough and tumble so this could prove tricky!

The living room at the moment:

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Sending bonding vibes your way :thumb: when I bonded my 2 pairs into a quad I had their runs next to each other, and swapped tunnels over frequently, and I'm sure that because they already knew each other it helped in their case :thumb:
 
I'll be doing this next week with Charley. She's so scared of everything so need to do everything slowly for her. So she'll be moving in with the boys for a week or 2 before bonding!

Sending vibes :love:
 
sir

Rabbits in the wild, are very racist. they do not mix. Grey rabbits stay with grey rabbits. And if you see black and white ones, they stay with black and white ones. The groups may be near, but stay apart. This is the reason for problems occurring when bonding rabbits at home. Wrong colour, and wrong breed. Most people are the same. If a rabbit does not want another rabbit, then that should be its choice, The only reason my rabbit has no partner, is because I don't want to be over run with baby rabbits. And I can not bring myself to have him operated on, to stop this happening. I only wish they had produced a pill for rabbits, or a drop for their water supply. After all they tested the pill on rabbits in the first place. But I have tried to find something to no avail. As my rabbit has never seen another rabbit, I don't suppose he knows there are any, so can not miss them.
 
Rabbits in the wild, are very racist. they do not mix. Grey rabbits stay with grey rabbits. And if you see black and white ones, they stay with black and white ones. The groups may be near, but stay apart. This is the reason for problems occurring when bonding rabbits at home. Wrong colour, and wrong breed. Most people are the same. If a rabbit does not want another rabbit, then that should be its choice, The only reason my rabbit has no partner, is because I don't want to be over run with baby rabbits. And I can not bring myself to have him operated on, to stop this happening. I only wish they had produced a pill for rabbits, or a drop for their water supply. After all they tested the pill on rabbits in the first place. But I have tried to find something to no avail. As my rabbit has never seen another rabbit, I don't suppose he knows there are any, so can not miss them.

In the same habitat, wild rabbits are all very much the same colour which is why you see groups of rabbits all the same colour. Albino rabbits are short lived in the wild due to their inability to camouflage so if you've ever seen a group they were very likely released or escaped pet rabbits, hence not socialising with wild rabbits.

I've never heard of a rabbit judging another on it's colour or breed - if take a look around the site you'll see all sorts of pairings! Usually problems with bonding stem from other issues like the rabbits not being neutered/spayed or the territory not being neutral.

It's obviously your decision whether or not to neuter and partner your rabbit but honestly, for a healthy rabbit, neutering is a minor operation and not something to worry about. My buck was done about a month ago and just a few hours after the operation you'd never tell he'd been operated on. Certainly the benefits of him having friends outweighs the risk of the operation for me.
 
Is this Peter James, who left the forum a while back? His post sounds very similar... :?

Rabbits in the wild, are very racist. they do not mix. Grey rabbits stay with grey rabbits. And if you see black and white ones, they stay with black and white ones. The groups may be near, but stay apart. This is the reason for problems occurring when bonding rabbits at home. Wrong colour, and wrong breed. Most people are the same. If a rabbit does not want another rabbit, then that should be its choice, The only reason my rabbit has no partner, is because I don't want to be over run with baby rabbits. And I can not bring myself to have him operated on, to stop this happening. I only wish they had produced a pill for rabbits, or a drop for their water supply. After all they tested the pill on rabbits in the first place. But I have tried to find something to no avail. As my rabbit has never seen another rabbit, I don't suppose he knows there are any, so can not miss them.
 
sir

Who is this Peter. you talk of. I would hate to be mixed up with someone else. Mind you most people say the same things about their views as others,
 
Well it seems Rambo is a little Houdini!

At Quarter past one last night I was woken by the sound of rattling pens.
Mack was very determined to move the divider and get in with Rambo and Lola last night so I went to make sure he hadn't managed to break any cable ties and escape.
What I found was not just Mack, but Rambo in his pen. Both sat there as if it was totally normal and they didn't know what the fuss was about.

Both pens were shut last night and there was a divider across the living room. When I put rambo away I noticed she had managed to open the door on their pen. I can only assume from there she must have hopped up on the sofa and the dining table to get around the centre divider, then got on the other sofa and table before leaping down in to Mac's pen. :shock:

These two clearly want to be together!
I don't want to get too confident but Rambo was the one I was worried about so I'm feeling much better about the likelihood of their bond working now and have decided to start on Sunday :thumb:

This is the obstacle course she battled last night:
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Stupidly left the room unattended when I brushed my teeth last night.
Half way through brushing I thought I could hear scuffling so I ran in to find Rambo on Mack's side of the room, her fur absolutely everywhere and the two of them tumbling about on the floor.
After an entire night of both of them lying about doing nothing Rambo must have scaled the sofa and the table again. Poor thing had no way to get back on her own side and away from him once she was in his area :(

Still going to attempt bonding tomorrow, I'm hoping this hasn't been too much of a set back.
 
We had a VERY rocky start. Mack kept attacking them for seemingly no reason. All three were up in the air, biting each other, boxing each other, it was horrible :( Every time they settled down and they were just sat frozen in a corner he'd casually hop behind one of them to rip out a chunk of fur an it would all start again.
I didn't know whether I was stopping them at the right time, I didn't know if I should just separate them and give up, I halved the area to just over 2ftx2ft because they wouldn't stop chasing each other and didn't know if it was the right thing to do. This was SO different to when I bonded Eli in.

However, we've not had any fights in 8 or 9 hours so I've doubled the pen size (it's now twice the size of the photo). I might even brave chucking some pellets in soon.
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I am beginning to see why people send their rabbits away to be bonded :lol:
 
I hope the bond continues peacefully. It is sooooooo stressful isnt it?

They do look very cute together. I love the flopped out bunny 'I am very chilled and not afraid of anyone' stance!
 
I hope the bond continues peacefully. It is sooooooo stressful isnt it?

They do look very cute together. I love the flopped out bunny 'I am very chilled and not afraid of anyone' stance!

When I bonded the girls and Eli it was a piece of cake. They were friends the moment they were together - I was not prepared for this! :lol:
The flopped bunny is Mack, he's the trouble maker!
 
I think I'm well on the way to a trio now!
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There's a lot to be desired still but they're spending more and more time together and today I tripled their area without so much as a sniff of trouble.:D (right after my last post I had to halve the size back because they started fighting again)
 
I've heard keeping the space reduced for a longer time can bring better results and by increasing it by a bit weekly keeps the harmony.

I adopted a bonded pair from a rescue this month and even they tried to become territorial over their new surroundings. I had to confine them to the cage for 3 days and then for the following week I let them access the run during the day as the squabbles we're happening during the night.

They now have the entire area to use all the time and it's working but at almost 2 weeks later - they still only have water, food, and hay (scattered across the floor) in their cage and run - No toys, no house or beds and so far they are inseparable :love:
 
I've heard keeping the space reduced for a longer time can bring better results and by increasing it by a bit weekly keeps the harmony.

I adopted a bonded pair from a rescue this month and even they tried to become territorial over their new surroundings. I had to confine them to the cage for 3 days and then for the following week I let them access the run during the day as the squabbles we're happening during the night.

They now have the entire area to use all the time and it's working but at almost 2 weeks later - they still only have water, food, and hay (scattered across the floor) in their cage and run - No toys, no house or beds and so far they are inseparable :love:

Yeah, I won't be putting them in the shed/run for a little while yet. In order to stop them fighting the original pen had to be about 2ftx2ft and they were going nuts being stuck in (especially once they were getting along well enough to put the litter tray in which took up half the space). It's now about 4ftx2ft and they're much happier. Lola was binkying all over the place when we put them back in :lol:
 
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