Bonding a female rabbit who has just lost her sister

01wellsd said:

Hi All,
This is my first post

Our 9 year old lionhead has just lost her sister and we wanted her to have a companion to keep her company.
We picked up a 7 month old female lionhead the other day. She is on the waiting list to be spayed.

I have set up 2 pens next to each other so that they can see each other, but a couple of times they have nipped each other through the bars, and the new one is spraying a lot

Am I doing anything wrong? I’m worried about introducing them properly until the spaying is complete

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Omi said:

Hi and welcome to the forum :wave: I'm sorry for the loss of your bunny.

Firstly and sorry to say this, but I think it might have been easier to have chosen a neutered male as a friend for your girl. It's likely she will have been happily bonded previously as the other female was her sister. However, that's not to say that this bond won't work, but it might be more difficult.

If I were you I would keep the two bunnies completely separate, ideally so they cannot see nor smell each other, until your new bunny has had her spay. How they are behaving with each other now is no indication of how they will behave when they meet, but it might leave negative memories. Your new bunny is spraying because she is hormonal. After her spay I would leave it for 4-6 weeks so that her hormones have completely gone, before attempting to bond them.

Your 9 year old lionhead will be very territorial and so any eventual putting together of the two bunnies must be done in a completely neutral area.

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