Wigs
Warren Scout
I'm looking for some advice please :wave:
We recently lost one of our rabbits, McKinley, to old age. Before we lost him, Mac was very closely bonded with Valentine for 5.5 years.
We don't want Valentine to be on her own, so adopted Loganberry from our local RSPCA branch and brought him home this past Saturday.
This RSPCA branch don’t carry out bonding, and advised us to take things slowly, i.e. put the rabbits in separate enclosures, side-by-side, whilst they get used to each other. They told us to wait until they are sleeping next to each other before we put them together, initially in a small, neutral space.
Since Saturday they have been in separate puppy pens, but next to each other (a few inches apart). They are in a room Valentine has only been in a couple of times. The puppy pens have been cleaned with white vinegar. Their toys / litter trays etc are brand new. We swapped the rabbits over (into the opposite pen) this morning, and have been swapping their toys and litter trays each day to get them increasingly used to each other's scent.
Loganberry was initially quite keen to get to know Valentine and kept approaching her, but she is having none of it. She is being aggressive and territorial and will lunge / grunt at Loganberry, with her tail held high. She will also try to bite his face through the bars (she cannot reach him). There are some positives - they will eat side-by-side, and at times will sit and groom themselves or sit in their litter trays whilst they are close. But Valentine remains aggressive, and I feel like Loganberry is starting to lose interest in her now.
Other than that, they both seem fairly happy. They are eating well, flopping out to go to sleep, and binkying when we let them out of their puppy pens (separately) to stretch their legs.
I appreciate we are being impatient(!), but we have not seen any progress so far with this approach, and wondered if anyone had experience of doing things this way?
Would really appreciate any relevant experience or suggestions for how to move forward from here? We do not want to rush things and cause both rabbits stress, but also don’t want things to stagnate if we’re not getting anywhere.
We’ve never bonded rabbits ourselves before, so are pretty overwhelmed by this and worried that we’re not doing the right thing for either rabbit
We recently lost one of our rabbits, McKinley, to old age. Before we lost him, Mac was very closely bonded with Valentine for 5.5 years.
We don't want Valentine to be on her own, so adopted Loganberry from our local RSPCA branch and brought him home this past Saturday.
This RSPCA branch don’t carry out bonding, and advised us to take things slowly, i.e. put the rabbits in separate enclosures, side-by-side, whilst they get used to each other. They told us to wait until they are sleeping next to each other before we put them together, initially in a small, neutral space.
Since Saturday they have been in separate puppy pens, but next to each other (a few inches apart). They are in a room Valentine has only been in a couple of times. The puppy pens have been cleaned with white vinegar. Their toys / litter trays etc are brand new. We swapped the rabbits over (into the opposite pen) this morning, and have been swapping their toys and litter trays each day to get them increasingly used to each other's scent.
Loganberry was initially quite keen to get to know Valentine and kept approaching her, but she is having none of it. She is being aggressive and territorial and will lunge / grunt at Loganberry, with her tail held high. She will also try to bite his face through the bars (she cannot reach him). There are some positives - they will eat side-by-side, and at times will sit and groom themselves or sit in their litter trays whilst they are close. But Valentine remains aggressive, and I feel like Loganberry is starting to lose interest in her now.
Other than that, they both seem fairly happy. They are eating well, flopping out to go to sleep, and binkying when we let them out of their puppy pens (separately) to stretch their legs.
I appreciate we are being impatient(!), but we have not seen any progress so far with this approach, and wondered if anyone had experience of doing things this way?
Would really appreciate any relevant experience or suggestions for how to move forward from here? We do not want to rush things and cause both rabbits stress, but also don’t want things to stagnate if we’re not getting anywhere.
We’ve never bonded rabbits ourselves before, so are pretty overwhelmed by this and worried that we’re not doing the right thing for either rabbit
