A cunning plan?

I need you guys to help me with my plan to rebond my bunnies. The full story is here but in basic, he had an operation, was rushed back in afterwards with severe hydration, in my rush and panic (and stupidity) I didn't take her. She got all territorial when he came back smelling funny and now they're having to take it in turns to go in top of hutch or bottom of hutch with free run of the house.

Bonding in neutral zone (bathroom) has been going ok but when they go back in the living/kitchen she attacks him.

What I'm thinking is this: a week of neither of them being allowed out in the living/kitchen. Every day they swap top and bottom of hutch so they keep familiar with each others smell and no one can become territorial over one area of the hutch. Bonding sessions once a day in the bathroom, getting progressively longer. In the mean time, I deep clean the living/kitchen to remove as much of the current scent as possible, rearrange some of their toys and as much furniture as I am able. Then hopefully at the end of a week or so, they can come out into the house without it being anyone territory and we can get back to how we were!

My questions are this:
Will it work?
Is it too cruel to keep them in half a hutch for a whole week or more if needed?
Is there anything I can do better?

Apologies if these come out huge..!

Basically I just wanted to bump this up for you as I am no expert on bonding but sounds like a good idea to me.

I think you need to find a neutral area where they can stay for say a couple of weeks in order to rebond before putting them back into their original home. It sounds like you are returning them to the living room too soon. Is your boy back to his normal self now so he is up to coping with her? In the meantime you can try to get rid of any residual smells and make the area interesting for when they go back into it so that they will be too interested in exploring boxes etc to get territorial. Hope it works - don't rush things.

Thanks Toni.
My problem is that my entire house consists of: kitchen/living room, bathroom, bedroom, hallway.
I could perhaps move them into the bedroom but there's no way I can get the hutch in here.
He's not quite up to full speed, he's nearly there, but won't attempt anything until he's got a bit better.


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LauraHoppo said:

Thanks Toni.
My problem is that my entire house consists of: kitchen/living room, bathroom, bedroom, hallway.
I could perhaps move them into the bedroom but there's no way I can get the hutch in here.
He's not quite up to full speed, he's nearly there, but won't attempt anything until he's got a bit better.


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Mine have to share free range but for different reasons and i know how tiring it can get. I was going to suggest the bedroom but you say you cannot get the hutch up there so would a dog crate work better for you? gypsy lives in a crate as her base, she did have a puppy playpen but i found it to be quite pointless so i now use that for the other bun. Maybe you have some one who could lend you one or pick up a 2nd hand one of the Facebook selling groups quite cheap. xx