Update & Questions on Handling

[manic_muncher]

Hi y’all.  Just a quick update and a couple questions.  After being home with us now for 3 weeks (and 2 days), Bumpy (holland lop about 14weeks old) is finally litter-trained, 100% pee and 90% poo!  So now I’m not forced to invade his space so often.  I have added romaine to his diet, and he gets mostly raisins as treats.  I did try him on banana earlier on, but he didn’t seem impressed.  Craisins he likes, but he totally goes nuts for raisins.  I tried again yesterday with a small taste of banana and he thoroughly enjoyed it.  He STILL hasn’t come out of his cage, I have not yet put down a surface that would be less scary though.  My x-pen should be here tomorrow, and then I’ll roll out the carpet!
 

Since he hasn’t come out and is still new, I haven’t been handling him.  I’ve literally only picked him up 3 times since he’s been here.  He’ll come sit next to me on his ramp to get raisins (while I am also sharing with the two little dogs), and has let me stroke his head lightly, but after only a few strokes he turns and slow hops away when he’s figured out my hand isn’t holding a raisin.  But, I’m concerned about grooming now.  I figured I’d wait til the x-pen is in place before I forced the issue, let him come out to explore it, or make him come out and close his cage door so he HAS to be outside of it.
 

Does that sound ok?  And once he is out, should I let a little time for him to adjust to the enlarged area before I attempt to groom him?  He doesn’t appear to get stressed when I try to pet him, just doesn’t want to interact.  Should I sit in the pen on the floor with raisins beside me?  How long should I wait to try to force him?

I’m being very patient now (unbelievably), but once he starts shedding, I’ll need to be able to brush out that extra hair, and I would hate for that to be his first time being brushed.  I know there will be a lot of hair at that point and grooming time would be longer than just a normal weekly touch up.  I’m afraid that my lack of handling him, coupled with actual grooming will make him associate one with the other and make it something he hates.  And I need to trim his nails!  He digs in his crate, but I know at minimum that the back feet need to be done.  I hate to just grab him, but I’m begining to think I’ll have to do so, if I want to keep him properly cared for.
 

Any help is greatly appreciated!  Thanks!

[bpash89]

I wouldn’t suggest forcing him out of his cage or closing it off in any way. That would most likely stress him out and make things worse. It’s really important that he feel safe and secure in order to build that bond between you two and being in a new space and separated from his home wouldn’t help that at all.

If he isn’t shedding now then I wouldn’t worry about grooming him and just wait until he is more comfortable with you. Getting him used to grooming is good but it could just make the whole process more difficult in the future if you force it. You can’t make him to interact with you and some bunnies are more cautious than others. I can only suggest the usual – spend lots of time with him. Get the x-pen set up and just sit in there with him and a good book. I know with my bunny, she loves to be groomed but only when I am doing something else. If I approach her and try to pet her then she hops away, but if I’m busy on the computer then she will sit and hover until I acknowledge her. I can’t stress enough how important it is to do things on his terms.

I can’t help with the nails thing – I have to take mine to the vet because she’s so awful about having her feet handled but there’s plenty of info and tips about doing nails on here.

Once you are able to groom him or do his nails be sure to give him a treat so he associates it with something good.

[manic_muncher]

Thanks for the quick reply! Yea, I definitely don’t want to rush him. I can see he is slightly more at ease with us, he comes to the door when I call him over to it, and goes in his litterpan when I tell him to “get in your box”. And I make a huge production out of getting fresh hay out of the storage bin underneath his cage. He really gets excited when I slide that out. lol

I -can- trim the nails, I’ve just been avoiding doing it because I didn’t want to stress him out by forcing him to be handled before he is comfortable enough to at least come out his cage by himself. They were trimmed on the 2nd of this month, when we went to pick him up to bring him home, so I was thinking I am running out of time, if I want to keep his quicks from growing out too long. Thanks for the reminder about giving him a treat after unpleasant things!

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