Rebonding after injury

Millie has been in a separate pen for just over 3 weeks now while an injury healed - I am desperate to get them back together and I think she is too. Her injury is healing well but not fully healed yet, when is it safe to try rebonding with her boys? It was an open wound hence the vet recommended she be kept separate and in a smaller space to restrict her movement. I don’t want to try too soon incase it affects her recovery, or if the boys regard her as weakened and this causes bonding problems but I also don’t want to leave it too long.

Maybe put her in the boys' area on her own for a while every day. It will get her moving about more and she will leave her scent there to remind them that she is around. It's not worth risking the wound opening up again for the sake of a few more days, but you can gradually build her up to be able to cope with the boys again.

Have they had access to each other through the separate pen? If not, you could move that so they have contact through the bars to see how they get on and take it from there. If there is any referred aggression, I would wait until she is fully fit before reintroducing her.

Oh yes, could do that while they are out & about. The way they are situated would mean the boys could also have access to her pen when they are out and she is in theirs. Their pens are literally touching and the 3 of them sit next to each other a lot. I won’t be putting them back together until at least Boxing Day as I’ll be out for a while tomorrow so don’t want to leave them unattended. She has a vet check up on Thursday, I’ll either leave it til after then or try on Boxing Day & they can all travel together to the vet.

Hoping to get this started today, the vet last week recommended I wait until this week to make sure the last tiny bit of the injury had healed. Any tips? My plan is to treat it like a completely new bond - will bring them upstairs to a neutral area to start with. Their original bond was quite quick so fingers crossed they will go back together with no issues, they look for each other a lot through the bars.

Casco said:

Hoping to get this started today, the vet last week recommended I wait until this week to make sure the last tiny bit of the injury had healed. Any tips? My plan is to treat it like a completely new bond - will bring them upstairs to a neutral area to start with. Their original bond was quite quick so fingers crossed they will go back together with no issues, they look for each other a lot through the bars.

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No tips (I think you know what you're doing) but lots of luck. I look forward to updates

Good luck today. Was the injury caused by a fight? Try to give them lots of hay so they can munch on that with a few healthy treats!

Thank you, nervous about how it will go. The injury was caused by a fight but not between these 3, I attempted to add another rabbit and despite early signs of things going ok he decided he didn’t like Millie after all