Bonding two boys

Hi all

I was looking for advise as to whether my bonding is going ok. Until recently I had two male bonded bunnies, they had been together nearly 6 years and I bonded them myself. Unfortunately one of them passed away a few weeks ago, and the remaining bunny, dusky, seemed to be getting depressed so we adopted a new bunny, Escobar.

We got Escobar around a week ago, and started bonding straight away, we started out with 2-3 hour sessions twice a day, and as things were going well we put them together in a bonding pen in our living room 3 days ago.

Tonight we took the pen down and are letting them free roam our living room, however dusky seems obsessed with Escobar, constantly jumping and fur pulling, which Escobar runs away from. There has however been plenty of grooming between them as well as sleeping and eating together.

I’m now wondering if we’ve rushed the bonding? Or is this behaviour ok? Escobar doesn’t seem too bothered as he just runs off to eat more hay/flop/groom himself.

Any ideas would be most welcome!

Thanks!

Hello,

I’ve only ever bonded a quadruple and a triple, and when they were being bonded they did have a few scraps and I was told some fur pulling and maybe mounting is normal as long as no blood is drawn and they don’t both scratch at each other’s bellies (when they like become one ball as they are fighting). Even with just the two of them they’ll be trying to form a hierarchy, so they are probably just trying to figure out whose boss. From the sounds of it Dusky is the dominant male.

From the information you’ve provided it sounds to me like your doing fine and things are on track
Hope this helps