Trio odds

Hello ,

so... I've had rabbits for a while now. I've always had bonded pairs male x female and never encountered any problem with those. Last month, I've lost my female bunny, whom I've lived with for almost 10 years. She's leaving behind a 5 year old rabbit who has lived with her his whole life and who looks terribly bored on his own.
I've decided to find a female who would be around 5 too and to bond them. It has proven to a lot more complicated than I thought - you find very little rabbits over 2 y o anywhere (it's pretty depressing to see how many people give away their rabbits 3 months after getting them saying they 'don't have the time for them anymore' :/). I've looked up what feels like hundreds of adds and filled a number of applications for rescues which didn't answer at all / told me that their website wasn't updated and that the rabbit I was asking about had been adopted months ago / told me I lived too far away...
In the end, pretty disheartened by the waiting and being disappointed game, I filled two applications at the same time, one for a small female rabbit in a rescue and one for a retired breeding holland lop doe at a breeder. Of course, both of those went through. Figures.
I feel pretty bad as I contacted both those people myself and I don't like the idea of backing out. I also have a hard time 'chosing' one of them. So now, I'm wondering if there is a way I could get the two of them and make this work as a trio.
Of course, I'm pretty daunted by the idea that it might not work. The rescue and the breeder are really far away and in opposite directions so there is no way to do a meet and greet session or anything beforehand. I've read a lot (also on this forum) about this and I know there is no guarantee.
Here, I think it might be do-able. Maybe. My rabbit, Tybalt, is neutered and quite mellow. He never seemed really interested in hierarchy and is generally just pretty lazy. He was very nice and helpful with my older bunny when she was ill (she was also blind and skittish). He has his own room and is not caged ever.
The bunny from the rescue is 5 as well. She was left at a vet for 'euthanasia' by her previous 'family' with a gash on her back filled with maggots which needed 15 stitches to be closed. She is described as 'sociable' and is living in an outside pen at a rescue. Her pen is surrounded by other pens, but I don't know if she has previous experience living in direct contact with other rabbits (which scares me a little even for a pair bonding). She will be spayed before coming home if I take her.
The bunny from the breeder is 4 and a half. She's currently not spayed (but would be, of course, before I attempt any bonding) and lives in a group of 4 does she is not related to at her breeder's - that's actually what made me think about the trio thing.

What I would like is to have a better way to gauge my odds. I know it all depends on the rabbits' personalities and all the articles I've read were like 'it can work, it can fail' but without any specifics - is it 'it almost never works' or 'it sometimes don't work out'? I'd like to hear from the people who have attempted to bond a trio to know how many worked out and how many fell through. I'm too chicken to attempt something if the odds are like 25% success 75% fail.

Thanks!

Welcome to RU Maya

The doe in rescue really sounds like she needs a forever home I really hope you can offer her this.

In answer to your question. I successfully bonded a trio 4 years ago. It took a long time, lots of work (supervision) but was probably one of my best personal achievements. I had a neutered unrelated pair, established a year or so, with a spayed female (used to group living at Rescue). They are still together now. If your question were about quad bonding I'd give myself a big fat fail though.

In your shoes (& I apologise as you've not asked for this opinion), I'd take the rescue doe & bond to my existing boy & if your heart yearns for a trio add in a rescue when you know the dynamic of your pair . I personally wouldn't worry about letting a breeder down - those young bunnies will no doubt find homes easily

sorry - I see the breeders bunny is 4.5. She must be bonded to that group - shame to split them if so

Hi and welcome to RU:wave: I 'm sorry you lost your doe last month.

If you've been lurking on the forum you will see that bonding success can never be predicted. I would say from your description that both of the rabbits sound as though they would bond quite easily, but it seems to be a fact that rabbits very much have their own preferences as far as partners go.

I would agree with j&b that the rescue rabbit certainly would tug at my heart strings and I would certainly want to offer her a home. I also think that, whilst it is a shame that the retired breeding doe would be split from the other 3 if you take her, it would appear likely that the breeder will do this anyway, whether you take her or not.

I think it depends on your circumstances, in particular would you been able to accommodate a pair and a single (or get another rabbit to bond with the single) if a trio failed.

I personally feel that you should go with your gut feeling and if you would like to adopt both I would give the trio a good try. Would the rescue attempt to bond for you? If so, that could be another option to consider.

I hope all goes well whatever you decide and please let us know

I like having trios. In your position, I would ask if the does can be neutered before they come to you so you can start to bond them straight away rather than having to wait for the op, recovery, then hormones reducing, especially if you don't have space for all 3 separately.

Hope all goes well.

Shimmer said:

I like having trios. In your position, I would ask if the does can be neutered before they come to you so you can start to bond them straight away rather than having to wait for the op, recovery, then hormones reducing, especially if you don't have space for all 3 separately.

Hope all goes well.

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I have to admit they are really good fun

Shimmer said:

I like having trios. In your position, I would ask if the does can be neutered before they come to you so you can start to bond them straight away rather than having to wait for the op, recovery, then hormones reducing, especially if you don't have space for all 3 separately.

Hope all goes well.

Click to expand...

Hello,

thanks for the replies!
I asked both the breeder (who will separate the 4 does anyway - she is giving away the four of them considering they are all retired) and the rescue if the bunnies could be spayed before coming home but the breeder had concerns that a spay followed by the trip and a new family would be a bit much for the doe. She said it would be better if I could get the rabbit and let her settle down before spaying. I would prefer getting a spayed bunny but I think the breeder has a point and that's not a major issue as I have a pretty big house with two floors and separate rooms (my current bunny lives on the ground floor and stays mostly in his room).
The rescue will do the spaying, but that means the rabbit won't be coming home before at least a few weeks (no problem either, I'd rather have a fully healed rabbit before attempting the trip as it will be quite a few hours of car).

I feel really sorry for the rescue doe (they named her Jasmine, which I think suits her pretty well ). They made a video about her, the text is in French but I think you can gather what happened to her anyway (as a side note, I'm really impressed with how well green clay worked on her wound - it really did wonders):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oohOnG_VB2A

The thing is I don't think she's been in close contact with another bunny before. I guess I'm kinda scared she doesn't know how to 'speak rabbit', if that makes sense. She's also closer to 6 y o than to 5, from what I've gathered, and suffered from horrible conditions all her life which makes me afraid that she could have some underlying health issues. She had diarrhea when she was rescued and her guts suffered quite a lot (considering she is living in an outside pen now, in a sanctuary containing dozens of animals which is managed by one woman, I don't know how accurately her guts' health is being monitored either) and I'm also dreading teeth problems related to her previous diet. I don't even know what they will discover during the spaying as she's reached a pretty critical age for ovarian / utering cancer already.
I guess I'd feel guilty if I didn't take her (she's been in the rescue since May, from what I've found) but I'm also scared of her dying early on (or even during the spay... me, dramatic? Not at all!) because of hidden issues and leaving me with a distraught single bunny once more (and to have to go through the search / spaying / bonding thing again knowing that my bunny will be even older which probably won't help, for now he is still energetic and in good health)

About the breeder's doe (she is called Biscotte, but if I get her, there is no way in hell she is keeping that name :roll, I really don't like that the breeder is giving away retired does unspayed. She is a BEW purebred Holland lop and I'm concerned she could end up with people who will try to breed her. Honestly, I also think she would be the 'easy' choice to bond with my rabbit considering she's a healthy doe already living in a group. The breeder also told me she was her best 'mum'. So, you know, she sounds like she likes other rabbits which is a plus (my Tybalt is a big baby so that could work ^^).

If the trio doesn't work out, keeping a pair and a single bunny would not be impossible for me. But it would be inconvenient (I've also got a big dog who doesn't interact with the bunnies at all as I'm on the 'better safe than sorry' team on this) and I would feel bad for the single rabbit - one of the reasons I won't let my current bunny stay single is that I have to go on trips for my job about once a month (I have someone coming twice a day while I'm gone, of course) and that I can't bring myself to leave him alone in the house for days. I don't really see myself finding a fourth rabbit and doing the bonding thing all over again to remedy that either (really, I've spent sooo much time looking for a rabbit, reading up on bonding and fretting about this whole thing I haven't been working half as much as I should have these past few weeks which is getting a bit problematic - luckily I work from home but I don't think 'bunny problems' will be received well as an excuse for me failing to hand in my manuscript and I'm a week late on my deadline already ^^').

This whole thing is terrible. It all comes down to :what if I make the wrong choice? What if I don't get Jasmine and she isn't adopted by anyone? But what if I get her and she's actually unhealthy and dies? What if the one I've chosen doesn't get along with my rabbit? What if I get the two bunnies and it ends up being a disaster?
Me, anxious? Not at all :lol:
I'd feel a lot better if those rabbits came from close-by rescues / breeders and I had the possibility to have a 'trial run', but there is no rescue taking care of rabbits next to me and no breeders who doesn't breed for meat only. I haven't found a single rabbit who wasn't a baby (and there is no way I'm doing the 'waiting until the baby has grown up to spay', 'suffering through teenage spraying and the like' thing again) who wasn't 200km away from me. Jasmine was the only rabbit close to Tybalt age I've found ANYWHERE and that rescue is 650 km away from my home. So, yeah... that doesn't help. At first I thought I could just wait to find something in my area but I've been looking for a while now and considering my region is the kind of place where mostly 'old people' living by the old ways (you know, hunting, keeping their dogs in outside kennels and stuff) live I don't think I'll ever find an adult bunny there.
I'm wondering if I'm just working myself into a tizzy for nothing (I've been known to do that at times ^^).

Maya said:

Hello ,

so... I've had rabbits for a while now. I've always had bonded pairs male x female and never encountered any problem with those. Last month, I've lost my female bunny, whom I've lived with for almost 10 years. She's leaving behind a 5 year old rabbit who has lived with her his whole life and who looks terribly bored on his own.
I've decided to find a female who would be around 5 too and to bond them. It has proven to a lot more complicated than I thought - you find very little rabbits over 2 y o anywhere (it's pretty depressing to see how many people give away their rabbits 3 months after getting them saying they 'don't have the time for them anymore' :/). I've looked up what feels like hundreds of adds and filled a number of applications for rescues which didn't answer at all / told me that their website wasn't updated and that the rabbit I was asking about had been adopted months ago / told me I lived too far away...
In the end, pretty disheartened by the waiting and being disappointed game, I filled two applications at the same time, one for a small female rabbit in a rescue and one for a retired breeding holland lop doe at a breeder. Of course, both of those went through. Figures.
I feel pretty bad as I contacted both those people myself and I don't like the idea of backing out. I also have a hard time 'chosing' one of them. So now, I'm wondering if there is a way I could get the two of them and make this work as a trio.
Of course, I'm pretty daunted by the idea that it might not work. The rescue and the breeder are really far away and in opposite directions so there is no way to do a meet and greet session or anything beforehand. I've read a lot (also on this forum) about this and I know there is no guarantee.
Here, I think it might be do-able. Maybe. My rabbit, Tybalt, is neutered and quite mellow. He never seemed really interested in hierarchy and is generally just pretty lazy. He was very nice and helpful with my older bunny when she was ill (she was also blind and skittish). He has his own room and is not caged ever.
The bunny from the rescue is 5 as well. She was left at a vet for 'euthanasia' by her previous 'family' with a gash on her back filled with maggots which needed 15 stitches to be closed. She is described as 'sociable' and is living in an outside pen at a rescue. Her pen is surrounded by other pens, but I don't know if she has previous experience living in direct contact with other rabbits (which scares me a little even for a pair bonding). She will be spayed before coming home if I take her.
The bunny from the breeder is 4 and a half. She's currently not spayed (but would be, of course, before I attempt any bonding) and lives in a group of 4 does she is not related to at her breeder's - that's actually what made me think about the trio thing.

What I would like is to have a better way to gauge my odds. I know it all depends on the rabbits' personalities and all the articles I've read were like 'it can work, it can fail' but without any specifics - is it 'it almost never works' or 'it sometimes don't work out'? I'd like to hear from the people who have attempted to bond a trio to know how many worked out and how many fell through. I'm too chicken to attempt something if the odds are like 25% success 75% fail.

Thanks!

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Hie there and welcome to the forum :wave:

I am sorry you lost your doe. It's always heart breaking

In your shoes I would make sure there is a fall back plan and by that I mean the rabbit would be taken back if the bond didn't work.

I have bonded a trio in the past, and if I am honest would prefer a male/male/female combo. What I did was wait until all were neutered and vaccinated and any waiting period over, and then put them together on neutral territory. I have bonded groups since and had no problems.

It's always a bit of a risk, but if you know you can return the rabbit (however hard that would be) then I think you will be more relaxed about the whole thing.

Good luck

Thank you. Yeah... it was, as it is often the case with rabbits, very sudden - she was running around the day before she died and, you know, you always feel like they're going to live forever. It was heartbreaking, but at least she was pretty old and she died peacefully. She didn't look like she was in pain or anything which was a small comfort.
You're right. Writing my second message and reading yours, I realize that I've been stressing and asking questions about everything when the main thing I should have worked out with the rescue and the breeder was 'can I give the rabbit back if the pairing goes south and how?'. I guess I panicked looking for a rabbit because my Tybalt isn't doing great by himself (he eats a lot less hay since his mate died... he spaces out a lot, which he always did but it's worse now, and it's like he forgets to go eat his hay if I'm not here to grab his attention) and finding a suitable rabbit to bond him with proved to be a lot harder than I thought it would be.

Maya said:

Thank you. Yeah... it was, as it is often the case with rabbits, very sudden - she was running around the day before she died and, you know, you always feel like they're going to live forever. It was heartbreaking, but at least she was pretty old and she died peacefully. She didn't look like she was in pain or anything which was a small comfort.
You're right. Writing my second message and reading yours, I realize that I've been stressing and asking questions about everything when the main thing I should have worked out with the rescue and the breeder was 'can I give the rabbit back if the pairing goes south and how?'. I guess I panicked looking for a rabbit because my Tybalt isn't doing great by himself (he eats a lot less hay since his mate died... he spaces out a lot, which he always did but it's worse now, and it's like he forgets to go eat his hay if I'm not here to grab his attention) and finding a suitable rabbit to bond him with proved to be a lot harder than I thought it would be.

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You're welcome.

Some rabbits really grieve and miss their mate. I know some of mine have been in a demented state after loss and I have bonded with another rabbit within a week. What prompted me to go for bigger groups was precisely the heartache they feels when their friend leaves.

So I guess there are no available rescue rabbits in your area? Sorry if you've already talked about that. They would most likely be neutered and vaccinated and ready to go if so.

If it helps, I have had 3+ in a group for more than 5 years. I added a male to a male/female with no problems at all. I then added a 5 year old female, Holly, to the group. She had lived alone in a 3 foot indoor cage for her whole life with no contact with other rabbits. The boys accepted her with no problems but there was no love lost between the girls and Holly had no idea what was expected of her. It took me about 3 months to bond her into the group but eventually things settled down. Lots of banana rubbed on their noses helped her learn how to groom lol.

I then added another boy with no problems. 6 months later I added a friend’s rabbit who had lost his mate and this again proved difficult and was a weak bond. When I lost one of the original pair, the bond broke beyond repair and the last male had to be removed and now lives separately.

Just an example how different bonds can be. If you have the time, money and space, I would go with your heart.

MightyMax said:

You're welcome.

Some rabbits really grieve and miss their mate. I know some of mine have been in a demented state after loss and I have bonded with another rabbit within a week. What prompted me to go for bigger groups was precisely the heartache they feels when their friend leaves.

So I guess there are no available rescue rabbits in your area? Sorry if you've already talked about that. They would most likely be neutered and vaccinated and ready to go if so.

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No... no rabbit rescue in my area or I would have gladly gone there. We don't have much of those in France anyway (the one Jasmine is from is mainly a guinea pig rescue).
On top of everything, I just noticed Tybalt was standing in a place where he usually doesn't go. He stretched and yawned hunching exaggerately twice and took a while to go eating (he still ate the piece of vegetable I gave him and some hay). He was running around really hard this morning and I'm beginning to suspect he might have hurt himself. Really, I can't believe this - it has never happened before :roll: Of course, he didn't move at all while I was trying to see if he was limping or not and just disappeared in his cardboard box when I moved (too fast for me to see anything). I'm thinking of giving him Metacam for tonight, considering I won't be able to see a vet before tomorrow.

Jemima said:

If it helps, I have had 3+ in a group for more than 5 years. I added a male to a male/female with no problems at all. I then added a 5 year old female, Holly, to the group. She had lived alone in a 3 foot indoor cage for her whole life with no contact with other rabbits. The boys accepted her with no problems but there was no love lost between the girls and Holly had no idea what was expected of her. It took me about 3 months to bond her into the group but eventually things settled down. Lots of banana rubbed on their noses helped her learn how to groom lol.

I then added another boy with no problems. 6 months later I added a friend’s rabbit who had lost his mate and this again proved difficult and was a weak bond. When I lost one of the original pair, the bond broke beyond repair and the last male had to be removed and now lives separately.

Just an example how different bonds can be. If you have the time, money and space, I would go with your heart.

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This is a wonderful story Jemima.

It's exactly the way I am thinking and going since the last two or three years. If you intend to keep rabbits for the foreseeable, it's a way of ensuring no bun ends up lonely when a loved partner dies.

So... taking everything into account, I decided to try the trio thing but with rabbits I can give back if they can't stand each other. I don't want to end up making a bunny miserable if the trio fails. I'm going to get the rescue one if the rescue is OK with taking her back should things go south (still waiting for their answer... they just got a lot of guinea pigs and rabbits after an awful 'petshop farm' was closed down, pouring about 6000 animals in rescues so I think they are a bit overwhelmed right now). The doe retired from breeding was a lot too far away to consider in this scenario but another breeder contacted me saying she has a doe who will be 5 in June that she can give me. She's a lot closer to me than the one I previously considered and the breeder says she'll take the doe back if things don't go well. I'm going to see her on Sunday. So, fingers crossed!