Apologies for the long message, please bare with me!
My wife and I have a 2 year old buck called Gimli. We've had him since he was about 10 weeks, and since we've had him we've tried to bond him with two does, both of who sadly passed away.
Not wanting him to be lonely, we've recently got a 15 month old non-spayed doe, Bramble, that we're currently trying to bond with him.
We got Bramble from a very experienced rabbit breeder who advised that it wasn't essential that she was spayed. Our last doe died on the operating table and our first doe had major trouble after her operation, so we've been trying to avoid spaying if at all possible.
Gimli tends to live in our garage for about 90% of the time. When we got Bramble, we gave her her own hutch and small bit of space next to Gimli's space, but with bars between them so they could see each other but not get to each other.
For the first few days, we let them see each other through the bars, but didn't let them out and interact.
Since then, we've given them a good half an hour each day to interact with each other. At first it was fairly normal, ignoring each other, touching noses then running away, a few nips here and there, but no humping.
Then they started fighting. We split them up and separated them each time they did this. This happened for the first four to five days, but the couple of days after that they started grooming each other and really seemed to get on, with no aggression whatsoever.
We thought they were ready to be left alone, but as soon as we were about to leave them they started fighting again. We've had about five bonding sessions since, and each time they've had a fight, sometimes more aggressive than others.
We're a little bit stuck with what to do now. Do we persevere with them? Is there a different approach we can take?
Admittedly, the space we have been trying to bond them in is more Gimli's, so we're not sure if this may have escalated tensions somewhat.
We wanted to try and bond them in a neutral space, but he is so hard to catch we've struggled with this (he hates being picked up!).
We're desperate for Gimli to have a partner, but don't want to keep forcing different does onto him in the hope he finds a mate
My wife and I have a 2 year old buck called Gimli. We've had him since he was about 10 weeks, and since we've had him we've tried to bond him with two does, both of who sadly passed away.
Not wanting him to be lonely, we've recently got a 15 month old non-spayed doe, Bramble, that we're currently trying to bond with him.
We got Bramble from a very experienced rabbit breeder who advised that it wasn't essential that she was spayed. Our last doe died on the operating table and our first doe had major trouble after her operation, so we've been trying to avoid spaying if at all possible.
Gimli tends to live in our garage for about 90% of the time. When we got Bramble, we gave her her own hutch and small bit of space next to Gimli's space, but with bars between them so they could see each other but not get to each other.
For the first few days, we let them see each other through the bars, but didn't let them out and interact.
Since then, we've given them a good half an hour each day to interact with each other. At first it was fairly normal, ignoring each other, touching noses then running away, a few nips here and there, but no humping.
Then they started fighting. We split them up and separated them each time they did this. This happened for the first four to five days, but the couple of days after that they started grooming each other and really seemed to get on, with no aggression whatsoever.
We thought they were ready to be left alone, but as soon as we were about to leave them they started fighting again. We've had about five bonding sessions since, and each time they've had a fight, sometimes more aggressive than others.
We're a little bit stuck with what to do now. Do we persevere with them? Is there a different approach we can take?
Admittedly, the space we have been trying to bond them in is more Gimli's, so we're not sure if this may have escalated tensions somewhat.
We wanted to try and bond them in a neutral space, but he is so hard to catch we've struggled with this (he hates being picked up!).
We're desperate for Gimli to have a partner, but don't want to keep forcing different does onto him in the hope he finds a mate