• Forum/Server Upgrade If you are reading this you have made it to the upgraded forum. Posts made on the old forum after 26th October 2023 have not been transfered. Everything else should be here. If you find any issues please let us know.

Bonding Jellybean with Ham & Bea - Update

Beapig

Mama Doe
We're trying to bond Hamilton and Beatrice with Jellybean again this weekend, this time in Jellybean's room/her territory. At first it seemed to be going better because Jellybean was comfortable in her environment, but Beatrice has laid into her so many times now that Jelly is cowering in a corner and shaking most of the time. She has lost all of her confidence.

I'm wondering if we could trying removing Beatrice from the situation and just having Hamilton and Jelly together to start with, then reintroducing Beatrice to the situation. Hamilton is gentle as a lamb - he has not once gone for Jel, but she's so freaked out by other rabbits in general now that she's too scared to let him anywhere near her.

I'm thinking I could divide the room into two, so Beatrice isn't completely separated from Ham who she is bonded with but that so she can't go for Jellybean. Then maybe once Jellybean is more comfortable and has warmed up to Hamilton, we can try them as a trio again. Beatrice is the problem here, but maybe if Hamilton and Jel connect, he will defend Jellybean when we try again.

What do you guys think?
 
Last edited:
It's also worth mentioning for those who don't know that they were once a trio with Plumpkin. Beatrice also gave Plumps a really hard time at first, but Plumpkin's reaction was more taken aback/hurt than petrified out of her mind. In the end, Beatrice was more bonded with Plumpkin than she was with Hamilton and she grieved for Plumpkin for weeks. So I don't think this is an impossible situation.
 
I had been thinking about you just last night and wondered how things were. And I wish this was a more positive update on your situation with Jelly.
I'm afraid I'm not an expert on bonding - and even more so with a trio. But I was watching my two last night and I spent some time wondering how people do trio bonding.
And I broke it down into this - which may not be the right way. I thought that one way would be to bond singularly and slowly at first. Get a new bonded double, and then repeat som that both bonded doubles then had a relationship with the new bun.
I'm sure there are some RU buddies who have massive experience with bonding trios and can point you in the right direction. But I hope very much that you can find a strategy. Jelly is lovely rabbit but perhaps she has some deep set emtional scars that could be the barrier so far. It's finding a way to win her confidence that may be the key to success.
Sending you positive vibes. x
 
I had been thinking about you just last night and wondered how things were. And I wish this was a more positive update on your situation with Jelly.
I'm afraid I'm not an expert on bonding - and even more so with a trio. But I was watching my two last night and I spent some time wondering how people do trio bonding.
And I broke it down into this - which may not be the right way. I thought that one way would be to bond singularly and slowly at first. Get a new bonded double, and then repeat som that both bonded doubles then had a relationship with the new bun.
I'm sure there are some RU buddies who have massive experience with bonding trios and can point you in the right direction. But I hope very much that you can find a strategy. Jelly is lovely rabbit but perhaps she has some deep set emtional scars that could be the barrier so far. It's finding a way to win her confidence that may be the key to success.
Sending you positive vibes. x

Thanks for the advice, Craig. I think this is definitely the best way to go forward for the time being. It has been a couple of hours now of having the room divided, and Jellybean has calmed down a lot. She's still wary of Hamilton, but she isn't terrified. Ham and Bea don't seem too distressed as they can still see each other through the fence. I think we're going to leave them to it with this setup and keep a close eye.

If Jellybean can gain confidence and trust with Hamilton, maybe she will be less scared of Beatrice. We'll have to wait and see.
 
Sorry but I could make arguments for both options. In other words I simply don't know and suspect the answer would be in knowing the character of the rabbits, rather than a blanket this way would be better type of response.

I do send lots of positive bonding vibes though and hope it all works out well. The past history with Beatrice and Plumplin must be a hopeful indication.
 
Sorry but I could make arguments for both options. In other words I simply don't know and suspect the answer would be in knowing the character of the rabbits, rather than a blanket this way would be better type of response.

I do send lots of positive bonding vibes though and hope it all works out well. The past history with Beatrice and Plumplin must be a hopeful indication.

Yep, I get where you're coming from there Omi. My gut feeling is that the above is the best way to go right now. Jellybean's crippling fear of Beatrice just lead to her getting injured last time, which was rubbish. So far, she has calmed down with Beatrice on the other side of the fence and they are even sniffing each other through the bars a bit.

To my knowledge, Jellybean may not have had contact with other rabbits since she was 8 weeks old. Now 4 - 5 years old, she has little experience with others of her kind, and her first experience with Beatrice was traumatizing for her. Jellybean is confident with my cat, in fact she will chase him off, and she should be much more threatened by him than by other rabbits.

I know it's too complex to blanket statement and not a black and white situation, but I think for now this may be the way to go. I do have hope/confidence that Beatrice will come around. She was so so mean to Plumpkin at first, pulling out her fur and scratching her. Yet their bond was amazing in the end.
 
Personally I wouldn't separate Ham and Bea. They are a bonded pair.

They're right next to each other in the same room, just with a wire divide up. Neither of them are showing signs of distress, they're all relaxed and laying down. To be perfectly honest, I'm not in the position financially to take on another rabbit. I also don't have the space, as Jellybean cannot live inside long-term. We have already spent £1000s on accomodation for Hamilton and Beatrice.

Bonding them this way is going much better. All of the bunnies seem much more relaxed and they're all able to interact without aggression.
 
Personally I wouldn't separate Ham and Bea. They are a bonded pair.
Yea I agree, have to say I'd never separate a bonded pair. You could end up with three separate rabbits... [emoji38]

Sent from my LYA-L09 using Tapatalk
 
Yea I agree, have to say I'd never separate a bonded pair. You could end up with three separate rabbits... [emoji38]

Sent from my LYA-L09 using Tapatalk

From my experience I'd say that is really unlikely. Bea's spay went badly and she had to be away from Hamilton for several weeks. Re-bonding them was not difficult despite this.

In another instance, Plumpkin could be away for 10 hours at a time for her dentals, and Beatrice would always give her a little nip when she was back but then they'd be back to normal.

Knowing my rabbits and their personalities as well as I do, I truly think this is the best way to bond them, even if it's not a conventional methodology.

It's also worth mentioning that I took a similar action when bonding Plumpkin with them. Beatrice was being very aggressive, so we shut Hamilton and Plumpkin in the aviary and kept Beatrice shut out in the run for the whole day. It gave her time to calm down and for Plumpkin to gain some confidence. Several hours later, we let her back in and Beatrice was fine with her.

I know my bunnies well and I think this is the right move for them, but it's okay for people to disagree.
 
From my experience I'd say that is really unlikely. Bea's spay went badly and she had to be away from Hamilton for several weeks. Re-bonding them was not difficult despite this.

In another instance, Plumpkin could be away for 10 hours at a time for her dentals, and Beatrice would always give her a little nip when she was back but then they'd be back to normal.

Knowing my rabbits and their personalities as well as I do, I truly think this is the best way to bond them, even if it's not a conventional methodology.

It's also worth mentioning that I took a similar action when bonding Plumpkin with them. Beatrice was being very aggressive, so we shut Hamilton and Plumpkin in the aviary and kept Beatrice shut out in the run for the whole day. It gave her time to calm down and for Plumpkin to gain some confidence. Several hours later, we let her back in and Beatrice was fine with her.

I know my bunnies well and I think this is the right move for them, but it's okay for people to disagree.
I'm not disagreeing. I'm just saying it's not something I'd try, but you know your buns - only you can really decide what you think is appropriate for them

Sent from my LYA-L09 using Tapatalk
 
good luck Beapig. I can empathise with much of your situation, circumstance, reasoning & emotions. I really hope it works out for everybun xx
 
It's also interesting to note that when Plumpkin died, Hamilton and Beatrice fell out and would barely tolerate each other's company. 1 month - 6 weeks after her death they finally started to sleep next to each other again and groom each other.

I suppose that the social lives of these animals are very complex, and I don't believe that there's a black and white good/bad way to bond them. If that were true, Jellybean would have killed Hamilton and Beatrice by now for being in her territory.

The main thing to me is that right now they are all relaxed and not in any danger. We have to take baby steps with Jellybean because she has some sort of PTS, I believe. Getting another rabbit to bond with her would not solve the problem, because rabbits full stop are scary to her at this point. She needs time to adjust and find her confidence.
 
good luck Beapig. I can empathise with much of your situation, circumstance, reasoning & emotions. I really hope it works out for everybun xx

Thanks joey&boo! <3 I know that you've had a hard time trying to work out what is best for Rudey. It really is a case of trying different things to determine what will work and what won't.
 
From my experience I'd say that is really unlikely. Bea's spay went badly and she had to be away from Hamilton for several weeks. Re-bonding them was not difficult despite this.

In another instance, Plumpkin could be away for 10 hours at a time for her dentals, and Beatrice would always give her a little nip when she was back but then they'd be back to normal.

Knowing my rabbits and their personalities as well as I do, I truly think this is the best way to bond them, even if it's not a conventional methodology.

It's also worth mentioning that I took a similar action when bonding Plumpkin with them. Beatrice was being very aggressive, so we shut Hamilton and Plumpkin in the aviary and kept Beatrice shut out in the run for the whole day. It gave her time to calm down and for Plumpkin to gain some confidence. Several hours later, we let her back in and Beatrice was fine with her.

I know my bunnies well and I think this is the right move for them, but it's okay for people to disagree.

Exactly, the main thing with bonding imo is knowing your bunnies well and what you feel will work best for them. I hope it all works out for you all :love:
 
Exactly, the main thing with bonding imo is knowing your bunnies well and what you feel will work best for them. I hope it all works out for you all :love:

Thank you Zoobec <3

I've had to split them up again for now because Jellybean was too stressed out. Not too sure whether to try again or give up. Ham & Bea are back together now and it hasn't affected their bond. Jellybean is just too scared of other rabbits. I think Plumpkin would have been an amazing match for her - e.g. a very dopey, placid doe who doesn't have a bad bone in her body. Hamilton has a lovely nature but he gets very humpy during bonding, and she found that way too traumatizing.
 
Thank you Zoobec <3

I've had to split them up again for now because Jellybean was too stressed out. Not too sure whether to try again or give up. Ham & Bea are back together now and it hasn't affected their bond. Jellybean is just too scared of other rabbits. I think Plumpkin would have been an amazing match for her - e.g. a very dopey, placid doe who doesn't have a bad bone in her body. Hamilton has a lovely nature but he gets very humpy during bonding, and she found that way too traumatizing.

I'm sorry to hear this. Do you reckon it might be worth her living alongside but separate to your other bunnies so she can learn about bunny behaviour through observation?

I swear bunny bonding can be the most stressful thing in the world
 
I haven't been too active on the forum for a while due to my workload, but I thought you might all like an update on the Jellybean situation.

So last weekend, we tried bonding the three of them again for the (fourth?) time? The same repeat problem happened - for the first hour or so Jellybean would fight back against Beatrice nipping her, but after a while she would start to cower and shake uncontrollably.

I've mentioned before that Jellybean was generally terrified of other rabbits, like they were aliens and she didn't even know that she was one. So we decided to remove Beatrice and put her in a parallel run. On the first day, she was still super scared of Hamilton and would run away from him if he got anywhere near her. By the second day, she was sniffing him curiously (before running away again). By the third day, she was running up to him and grooming him.

We felt that bringing her back in every night was counter productive, so we used run panels to separate them in the shed at night. At night we put Hamilton and Beatrice back together. It has not damaged their bond at all.

One week on from starting this bonding experiment, Jellybean is a different rabbit. Her nervous ticks have gone - she no longer lunges or grunts at me and she has stopped obsessively digging burrows - she has not dug at all this week.

We did wake up to quite a shocking mishap this morning - Jellybean had pushed the run panels dividing them too close to Hamilton and Beatrice's shelf in the shed, and they must have both jumped down onto her side. There was white fur everywhere, but I was surprised to see that Jellybean was completely fine, and it was actually Beatrice who was sat in the litter tray shaking. I looked her over and she has a scratch on her back, but nothing worse than the cuts she has given Jellybean in the past. I take this as a good sign that Jellybean was finally able to defend herself. It's a fair match now, and hopefully it will mean that we can bond the three of them together very soon.

I know that bonding rabbits in this way is not the norm of the recommended approach, but it has absolutely worked for us and our rabbits so far. Jellybean needed a gentle soul like Hamilton to show her that it's going to be okay, before meeting a fiesty little character like Beatrice.

I am really happy with how this is going and will continue to update :wave:
 
Last edited:
I’m so glad to hear that things seem to be progressing well, I hope it continues to go well for you all :love:
 
Back
Top