New bunny

[Treori]

 Hi guys

My new bunny finally arrived today (so much excitement!) and he is insanley relaxed! Seriously you would think he was doped up XD (he isn’t his breeder is a fantastic person and has already checked up on us to see if he arrived safely and if he was settling in OK).

There was a mess up with his pet pen with the company sending me the wrong size. The replacement should arrive at some point today or tomorrow with luck though, but until then he is confirned to his cage.

Now I already have a rex doe. She was neutered about 2 months ago so her hormones have had plenty time to settle. She is totally upset with this new arrival though. Took her about half an hour to realise that there was another rabbit in the same room as her. She happened to go near his cage and smelt him. Since then she has jumped onto his cage (and peed) lunged at me a few time, and actually tried to bite me (yes I felt teeth) she lunged hard at his cage once and got a mouthful of metal for her trouble. He is  totally chilled. At one point I had to check he was breathing because it looked like he was actually dead (photos will follow when I upload them) I have a feeling he will fit in with my household very well.

I used to think Freya was relaxed, but now he is making her look like she has ADHD. I’ve not heard any growling, grunting, stressed teeth grinding etc and there is no urine spraying but her tail is curled up all the time. Does it seem like she will get over herself rather quickly? Is there anything I need to watch out for behaviour wise? Especially with her. She seems to be showing some agressive behaviour, but she is also laying close to him whenever she can.

Mixed signals galore for me XD And Zeus is still like “Hey man, chill”.

Zeus is 11 weeks old, so he won’t be nuetered for another 1-3 months time so I won’t be putting them together for full bonding until at least a month after that. But I need advice on what to do NOW. What can I do to make things go smoother and to help Freya calm a little?

When they are ready how should I start? Cage swapping? Neuteral territory?

 

Now for the cute! <3 <3 <3

 

The top two crack me up. There is Freya lurking in the background, you can almost hear her saying “soon” XD

[Hazel]

Congrats on your new bun, he’s very cute!

Freya is naturally upset about the new arrival. She’s trying to protect her turf (females are often more territorial than males). I totally understand how her laying next to him at times seems weird since she’s otherwise being aggressive, but it’s actually not a friendly gesture in this case. It’s just another way for her to lay claim to her home. By laying next to him she’s trying to show how confident she is in a “You don’t scare me, this is MY place!” sort of way.

I’m sure she’ll calm down eventually and I hope bonding goes smoothly for you when the time comes.

[MoveDiagonally]

Congrats on the new arrival! He’s very cute
LOL. And I totally did NOT see Freya creeping in the background of those pictures until the second time I looked at them.

I agree with Hazel 100% about Freya’s behavior. I would let them settle in for a week or so and see how things go. If Freya’s aggression decreases than you can start pre bonding stuff if you’d like. If her aggression increases or seems to be building than I would move your new boy out of her territory. While housing bunnies near each other before bonding is usually recommended and helpful for some rabbit it can have the opposite effects and increase aggression. I’m not saying this is going to happen it’s just something to keep and eye out for with a territorial bunny.

No worries though it’s still really early and everything so far is normal.

[Treori]

Hi guys, thank you both for your replies.

Well last night I left Zeus’ cage door open so he could come out and explore if he wanted to (Freya was locked in her pen because she leapt onto his cage and weed through the bars, and I so shouldn’t be giggling at that because it was naughty! XD) he did actually come out and explored for quite a bit, he kept low to the ground though as nervous bunnies do but he accidentally went to close to Freya’s pen and she took a chunk of fur off the top of his head. It’s like he doesn’t even realise she is there, he didn’t even react to having his fur ripped out so I’m going to have to get some mesh with a small gap so they can’t get their noses through the pen bars (the cages have smaller gaps)

I have some other (much bigger) worries, but that is for an thread in the correct forum

And MoveDiagonally, her lurking is so funny. My brothers love photobombing too

[LittlePuffyTail]

Just have to comment on the insane cuteness of your bun!!!! Incredibly adorbs!

[manic_muncher]

Freya cracks me up.

[Beka27]

Oh my gosh. I also did not see Freya until I scrolled back up and looked again! That’s hilarious!!!

He seems like an amazing bunny! I would not worry about doing ANYTHING bonded related right now. Let him settle in. They can’t be together for a few months anyways, so use this time to bond with him YOURSELF.

[Baxter n Boos Mom]

Congrats on the new baby bun!!! Zeus is absolutely adorable.

And I agree with MD – if Freya doesn’t calm down, and her aggression continues to grow, I might move Zeus to another room or hallway. Poor girl 🙂 My Baxter, who is normally so sweet, turned into a vicious mean head when we brought home Boo. We had to give Boo his own separate space…and for his safety, we always used two baby gates, one on top of the other – so Baxter couldn’t jump over and attack the baby.

[Treori]

 Thanks a lot guys

 

Gah sorry it took me so long to reply, I forgot to ‘watch’ this thread.

 

This morning I was making breakfast for the buns this morning and I must have not locked Zeus’ pen door properly.

 

Freya was hopping around the french doors glaring at the neighbours kids (lolz). I just glanced up and I realised Zeus was out his pen and hopping towards me with his ‘foooooooooood’ face on. when he realises at the same time are Freya that they are BOTH out at the same time!!!

Straight over to each other nose to nose, and then Freya shoved him with her nose in his side (no biting this time because she didn’t end up with a mouthful of fur) but they did circle each other once before Zeus tried to mount her.

 

I don’t know how much further it would have went because when I took a step towards them they separated. Freya went one way, Zeus came towards me.

 

Luckily food was there to distract them from being put back in their cages.

 

I know this was an accidental meeting in a non neutral territory, but how did they do? It was certainly more calm and less violent than I had expected. Will this colour their first meeting in the neutral bathroom? Can I be hopeful that there IS some hope for them? I knew it wouldn’t be love at first sight because Freya was very aggressive towards Zeus whenever he hopped past her pen. But this is the most common ‘first meeting’ behaviour?

 

Also, here are two videos. Hopefully they work

The first one is Freya and a tensy binky (I managed to film one! I was so excited. let me tell you about the draw backs of filming/photographing black bunnies on black carpets, even walking in the evening is perilous because she can be hard to spot sometimes)

The second is some of Zeus’ binkies, he is a mad happy bunny

[Smudge2000]

When got my rabbit smudge a friend we started off by shutting one in their pen whilst the other one hopped around and then shut the other one in their pen whilst the other one could hop around. This meant they could sniff each other through the bars and started to get to know one another. Smudge never seemed aggressive at al to pixie. After about a week or so and pixie seemed settled in her home we decided it was time to let them out together. Like humans, rabbits need to go on ‘dates’ to get to know and trust one another. We put them in a room together where neither of them had been before so smudge wouldn’t get territorial. Smudge loves food so first of all we put them near each other and gave them each a food bowl of their food to eat. Smudge didn’t even look at pixie and just ate! Then he just hopped over to her food bowl and started eating her food! Once he had finished he was too busy exploring the new place to notice pixie. Start of with them together for maybe 10 minutes, depending on how it goes and built up gradually their time together on each ‘date’ At first, smudge occasionally tried to chase pixie or mount her (he is neutered mounting can also be a sign of dominance) but he never seemed to be too violent towards her. But of course, bounding all rabbits are different so you will just have to see how it goes.

[Treori]

Oh, I’m not trying to bond them yet XD
It was completely accidental them meeting each other outside their pens.

Zeus is currently running about now though and he definitely seems a lot more nervous which is a shame. Looks like this evening I will need to work more on our bond. I try to not wash my hands between buns so they can small each other mixed on me (I wash once both are in their pens, and always before making food or drinks etc, but when Im sitting petting them both no).

I know he has a real love affair with mint (he has risked Freya’s wrath by nicking hers through the bars while she is eating it XD) so I may hand feed him a few leaves.

[Hazel]

Very cute videos! I think their accidental meeting went pretty well. Since there was no fur flying I’d call it a success.

I know Zeus is still a baby but he’s already so big! How much does he weigh now? How much do they weigh when they’re fully grown?

[Treori]

Hehe good. So far I have had Freya out without having the wooden pallet shelves against Zeus’ cage (had to as they would fight through the bars) she was eating his hay through the bars and he was letting her. They even had nose to nose contact! Zeus is maturing so quickly already, he gave me a look the other day that didn’t look all babyish and instead screamed “Im a French Lop” lolz

He was exactly 2kg yesterday and his parents are both 14lbs + so he will likely be around that (Im unsure, but thats about what? 7kg roughly?)
french lops are called the giants of the lop world as they are the biggest ones you can get the ARBA and BRC both put Frenchies as weighing about 10lbs minimum.

[Beka27]

I’m hopeless at metric… lol!

So if he’s 2 kg now, that puts him at not quite 4.5 pounds. If his parents were 14 pounds, that would make him (potentially) just under 6.5 kg full-grown.

I still can’t get over those pics of him… he is so unbelievably adorable!

[Treori]

Yeah, he is 4.4lbs. (I cheated and looked up a metric to imperial converter on google )

And thanks, my mum says he is ‘stupidly cute’
When I see him running about and his ears flopping every which way, I tend to agree

[Treori]

Ah, I’m real upset now.
I was giving the rabbits their ‘dinner’ and as it’s Freya’s turn to be outside the pen running about, I left her running about (never been a problem before).

I placed her bowl of pellets and her plate of greens in her pen making sure she could see me do it (she was happily watching me from across the room, the gleam in her eye told me she would go there and risk being ‘locked in’ once she had finished her play time) and I opened the door to Zeus’ pen.

He didn’t even look tense, or upset or anything. He was sitting watching the bowl of greens and his bowl of pellets in my hand or so I assumed. The second the door was open he went for Freya and not in a playful “I wanna get to know you better” kind of way, he went for blood.

Freya didn’t take it sitting down though, so you can image the scrap they just had. I managed to get Freya out the way, and had a hand on Zeus’ shoulder to prevent him chasing after her, she was shockingly calm after what happened, she allowed me to move her, and didn’t try at ALL to get at Zeus in the slightest. Zeus on the other hand [lol] was spinning in circles under my hand, funny if it wasn’t for the circumstances.

I gave Freya her command to go into her pen, which she happily obliged me with, and I put Zeus in his cage.

I have checked Freya over, and given her a snuggle and a pet while I did it. She has lost no fur at all and there are no cuts or sore spots on her anywhere. I also checked Zeus over after I put Freya into her cage and locked it firmly, He lost a lot of fur in that fight, but he doesn’t seem to have any cuts or sore spots either now.

I feel awful. They had made such progress it seemed. Freya hopped past his cage after this happened and where before they would touch noses and even sit and nibble Zeus’ hay through the bars together NOW they are fighting through the bars again (Zeus going for Freya, not the other way round, after he went for her through the bars again she has been avoiding going near his cage at all).

I can’t believe he did that to be honest and it just shows how much he IS maturing. He isn’t a baby anymore already and I feel so sorry for Freya as you could see little moments between them where she was starting to accept him if not enjoying his company even through the bars.

Ugh, where do I go from here? Will they remember this and carry a grudge after Zeus’ neuter?

[LittlePuffyTail]

I don’t think there will be any grudge. When he is neutered he will be like a whole different bunny to her. Just try to make sure they can’t get at each other until after his neuter.

[Treori]

Thank you. I’ve been so worried. Tonights been nice and calm.
I have made sure the wood is back up covering the cage bottom of the bunny that is still ‘incarcerated’ while the other is out. made sure to feed them at the exact same time so they are ‘eating together’ with just the pen between them. There were a couple of nose touches this morning through the bars, so it looks like they are mending their fragile friendship already.

Zeus is actually being VERY friendly now. He is allowing me to pet him properly, though he still bolts a little if you walk into the room without saying or singing anything (he likes a little warning )

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