Bonding - living side by side stage

Hi, I just wanted to get a bit of advice/ideas about the sort of behaviours I can expect to see during the first stage of bonding (living side by side). In others' experience, what behaviours are normal/expected during this stage and is there anything I need to be on the lookout for (other than trying to bite each other through the bars)?

For background: I've just adopted a lovely boy bunny to bond with our bereaved girl We deliberately picked a placid, gentle rabbit for her, as we know she's likely to want to be dominant as she was in our last pair. Currently, we have it set up so that he has a pen made from NIC grids on a table within the shed our girl lives in. We would have loved to have them live side by side without putting him in her territory, but it wasn't feasible for us without having them both live inside for the foreseeable future (which would have caused her a lot of stress and we have cats). There's a ramp up to the table and a chair which she usually uses to jump up onto the table. We've moved the chair backwards so she can sit on it and see him, but not jump over and blocked off the top of the ramp with an extra grid to stop her getting into the small gap down the side of his pen (she managed this once, but we brought her back down again). His pen is a bit smaller than I'd like but we're hoping if all goes well we can move his pen onto the floor and expand it a little in a week or so and we'll be letting him use the run each day without her in it.

They've only been living this way for a few hours now, but I've noticed she has been quite agitated and initially kept trying to find a way to get to the table. They both seem interested/curious about each other and they've sniffed each other as much as is possible with the setup we have - I stopped the one time she would have been able to reach him: he seemed fine, just interested, she was more agitated so I moved her off the table. There was quite a bit of stamping from her initially and she was 'digging'/attacking the newspaper in the carrier we brought him home in (we thought it might help her get used to his smell if she could go in it, but moved it after a short period of time. She has calmed down somewhat over the last few hours and he seems pretty happy (though we obviously don't know him as well as her so it's harder to judge). They're both eating and he's been investigating his new environment.

This is the first time bonding for me, so just wanted to get others' thoughts about what to expect/what's normal for this stage. Thanks!

Hello and welcome to the Forum. Female rabbits are very territorial and she will not want another rabbit in her "space" unless she is really easy-going. You will really need to bond them in a neutral area or, if that is not possible, get someone to bond them for you such as a local Rescue. I hope you have made sure they cannot get to each other over night as she could attack him. Sorry to sound very negative but this happens very often when introducing rabbits.

Hi, and thanks for the advice. We don't plan on doing the face-to-face bonding in her territory - we will do that in a neutral pen inside with the cats in another room. We just don't have the available resources to set up a 2nd enclosure outside or to give them enough space over a longer period of time inside, so we thought we would do the first stage in her enclosure and then progress to doing 'dates' in neutral territory, returning them to the same sections of the shed afterwards. We have made sure she can't get to him through the bars, yes, as we anticipated this could be a potential problem otherwise.

We did ask the rspca branch we adopted him from about whether this arrangement would be ok with them and they agreed with what we suggested (I was a little surprised they weren't concerned about him being in her territory to be honest, but they didn't raise any objections). I'd love to have a service bond them, but our girl can get very stressed at the vets or other such places and refuse to eat, so I don't think she'd cope with that.

Huh, what's normal - that's a tricky question. I'm not an expert but I have successfully bonded a male and a female by letting them live next to each other for quite a few months.

In general, the female (Willow) was not happy welcoming another rabbit to her territory. She showed a lot of anger and displayed signs of "I'm ignoring you" to "you are a despicable intruder" to Charlie. After a week of living side by side, I allowed them to be in the same space but closely supervising them. There were several chases and I had to separate them all over and over again. Apart from the general advice you can read on this forum and various other websites, I had no plan and just followed my instincts and common sense. For quite a while the situation seemed pretty hopeless, Willow was not getting any friendlier towards Charlie but I continued the supervised access. In hindsight one thing that helped was that all this took place in the garden, so Charlie always had an escape route.

It took several months before the hostilities gradually eased off (reduced to grunts and urine sprays), then a few weeks later they stopped altogether and they started grazing together. From start to finish the bonding process took five months but it was certainly worth it. They have been living together for 7 months now without any problems; there is the occasional chase and humping but also many signs of affection: grooming and resting together side by side.

If they had not bonded, Willow and Charlie would live side by side; perhaps I would leave a few inches of space between their runs so that they can see and smell each other without getting too frustrated. Some excitement is normal so unless your girl works herself into a frenzy and looks really stressed out, I would try that.
As tonibun says female rabbits are very territorial so it's not ideal to try to do the bonding on the female's territory but I had no practical alternative and I succeeded but it took a while.

Lagomorphine said:

Huh, what's normal - that's a tricky question. I'm not an expert but I have successfully bonded a male and a female by letting them live next to each other for quite a few months.

In general, the female (Willow) was not happy welcoming another rabbit to her territory. She showed a lot of anger and displayed signs of "I'm ignoring you" to "you are a despicable intruder" to Charlie. After a week of living side by side, I allowed them to be in the same space but closely supervising them. There were several chases and I had to separate them all over and over again. Apart from the general advice you can read on this forum and various other websites, I had no plan and just followed my instincts and common sense. For quite a while the situation seemed pretty hopeless, Willow was not getting any friendlier towards Charlie but I continued the supervised access. In hindsight one thing that helped was that all this took place in the garden, so Charlie always had an escape route.

It took several months before the hostilities gradually eased off (reduced to grunts and urine sprays), then a few weeks later they stopped altogether and they started grazing together. From start to finish the bonding process took five months but it was certainly worth it. They have been living together for 7 months now without any problems; there is the occasional chase and humping but also many signs of affection: grooming and resting together side by side.

If they had not bonded, Willow and Charlie would live side by side; perhaps I would leave a few inches of space between their runs so that they can see and smell each other without getting too frustrated. Some excitement is normal so unless your girl works herself into a frenzy and looks really stressed out, I would try that.
As tonibun says female rabbits are very territorial so it's not ideal to try to do the bonding on the female's territory but I had no practical alternative and I succeeded but it took a while.

Click to expand...

Thanks Lagomorphine, glad to hear you succeeded in the end. I'm hoping it will help that they won't be 'meeting' in her territory, but we'll see. I was planning to leave it at least a couple of weeks before I introduce them in a neutral territory, but obviously I'll play that by ear.

Hi, we did something similar recently, although in our case it was introducing a female to a male, so we didn't have such a problem with her being territorial. Our bonding was done outside and we split the accommodation with wire, so that the existing male had the shed and half the runs and the new female just one of the runs. Our male was quite a calm rabbit and the new female was unspayed, but not sexually mature.

The initial reaction from the male was, as in your case, stamping very many times. The female was terribly relaxed. We put their food and water next to the wire, so that they got quite close to each other. There appeared no aggressive reaction after 24 hours, so we removed the wire, but closed off the shed. They remained in the same space (so no neutral territory). Initially the male kept chasing the female and nipped her bottom at every opportunity. I tried to calm them both by stroking. I think the situation was OK because (a) the female was much faster and had space to get away and (b) she had no interest in retaliation.

After about 10-12 hours like this the situation calmed down considerably and so we opened up the shed for them to spend the night together. We've had no more problems and they are now well and truly bonded.

Sending lots of vibes for your two. Let us know how things are going.

Omi said:

Hi, we did something similar recently, although in our case it was introducing a female to a male, so we didn't have such a problem with her being territorial. Our bonding was done outside and we split the accommodation with wire, so that the existing male had the shed and half the runs and the new female just one of the runs. Our male was quite a calm rabbit and the new female was unspayed, but not sexually mature.

The initial reaction from the male was, as in your case, stamping very many times. The female was terribly relaxed. We put their food and water next to the wire, so that they got quite close to each other. There appeared no aggressive reaction after 24 hours, so we removed the wire, but closed off the shed. They remained in the same space (so no neutral territory). Initially the male kept chasing the female and nipped her bottom at every opportunity. I tried to calm them both by stroking. I think the situation was OK because (a) the female was much faster and had space to get away and (b) she had no interest in retaliation.

After about 10-12 hours like this the situation calmed down considerably and so we opened up the shed for them to spend the night together. We've had no more problems and they are now well and truly bonded.

Sending lots of vibes for your two. Let us know how things are going.

Click to expand...

Wow Omi, sounds like you got pretty lucky with the bond there Though I've read different methods and some are faster than others, managing to get them from living side by side to living together properly within 24 hours seems like quite an achievement! She's definitely calmed down a bit now, so that's good progress. I think he will be pretty similar to your girl in that he does not seem remotely aggressive, but you never know how things will be until you try so we'll see. He is used to living near girls (but not interacting with them without barriers between them) and has apparently never shown any aggression towards them, so fingers crossed he will be tolerant if she's a bit difficult at first.

Good luck, NyxTaryn. Although it look a long time, actually it was fun to have them bonded. And I think ultimately your two must prefer being together to being on their own. They just haven't realized it yet...

Lagomorphine said:

Good luck, NyxTaryn. Although it look a long time, actually it was fun to have them bonded. And I think ultimately your two must prefer being together to being on their own. They just haven't realized it yet...

Click to expand...

Yes, I think that will be the case. Our girl hasn't been herself since she's been on her own which is why we decided not to wait too long before getting her a friend. That's the thing, I know the bonding will be stressful for both of them, but ultimately I'm pretty sure they will both be happier with a friend - our bunny certainly was happier when she had her daughter around.

The new bunny is still young, so hasn't been bonded with a girl before but is obviously curious about her. He doesn't seem particularly frightened by her or anything like that - he'll go into his bed if he feels threatened, but mostly when he can see her he is either curious or carries on doing whatever he was doing before (eating usually lol).

I'll keep an eye on them and see how they progress (we've got a camera set up in the shed so we can check on them and see how things are doing).