May the Bonding Begin!

[Mat & Jamie]

 Hello All,

I am “new” to this forum and I created an account so I could share my journey of my attempt to bond four Rabbits together.  Now, our definitions of Bonding might be different.  Therefore, I will share my goals of the bonding experience:

1.  My primary goal is to have all four of my Rabbits get along enough that they can all have play time outside of their cages together at the same time.  Without having to use dividers, and without me having to worry about fights.

2. To also get down to two cages, or one giant cage for them all to share.

In order for you to really understand my rabbits you need to know a bit about our backgrounds.

Pandora (Pandi):

Pandi was the first rabbit my husband and I adopted.  We got her in January 2013,  she is the oldest of the rabbits.  She is about 5 pounds and is a Mini Rex mix.  There is also a bit of Lionhead in her, because her hair is longest around her ears.  Pandi is the most outgoing of the bunch.  If someone is causing problems about 80% of the time it’s Pandi.  She can jump the highest and run the fastest.  She is not afraid to jump head-first into trouble.  She is also currently the Alpha-Bunny; the others follow her around.  

Penny: 

Penny was the second rabbit we adopted.  We got him in April 2013.  He is a complete sweetheart, but is extremely shy.  He is Mini Lop and is a little bit smaller than Pandi.  The thing I LOVE about Penny is that he’ll give me “Penny kisses” and he’ll lick your nose.  He is extremely submissive and will get bossed around from time to time. When we adopted Penny we thought he was the girl. Once we discovered he was a boy, we decided to keep his name the same. 

Roo:

Roo was born in August, and he was the largest of Pandi and Penny’s litter.  He is a mix of Rex, Lionhead, and Mini Lop.  Although none of their attributes really show.  He has regular fur that is medium length.  He looks more like than Pandi than Penny.  He is extremely adventurous like Pandi.  He is the friendliest of all the rabbits towards people.  

Piglet:

Piglet was the runt of the litter and is a sweetheart.  She has long fur and has some crazy Lionhead hair.  She is extremely shy like her mother, Pandi.  She doesn’t like to leave Pandi’s side (Although she has been becoming increasingly idependent).  She is the largest of my Rabbit herd and considered the most adorable by family and friends. (Mat and I love them all equally).

Background:

Pandi became pregnant when she had accidental contact with Penny before we realized he was a boy.  We had no idea she was pregnant until we found a nest one morning.  Pandi had a litter of three and we lost one of the babies at about 5 weeks.  We decided to keep the babies because we fell in love with them immediately.  

Current Situation:

Currently Piglet and Pandi are housed together in a large cage.  Roo and Penny both have their own separate cages.  We have need to keep Roo separate (As in a separate room)  from the other three because we had problems with them spraying.  We got Pandi and Penny both fixed once Pandi was done nursing the babies.  We had to promptly separate Roo from Pandi and Piglet when he began asserting dominance over Pandi.  Pandi and Piglet have never been separated from each other for more than a few days.  They cuddle together and groom each other.  In my opinion they are a truly bonded pair.  Once Penny and Pandi had been fixed for a month we introduced him to Pandi and Piglet.  They immediately got along, we never had a fight or a conflict.  Penny does not share a cage with the girls because he tends to get a little frisky with them.  Which understandably annoys them.  So he has play time with them every day, but at the end of the day goes back to his cage.  With Roo we let him out for his play time on his own in a separate room.  Because he has always been kept separate he is extremely friendly with my husband, myself, and our cat. 

So this is me trying to introduce Roo into the herd.  He has had problems in the past with Penny so I know it will not be easy.  The only one who hasn’t been hostile to him yet is Pandi.  I do feel like Roo gets lonely at times and I think it is best for him to be able to play with the others. It will be hard, but I know that if I am successful I will have four extremely happy rab**bits.

Please let me know if you know anyone who has successfully bonded four rabbits together.  Also I welcome any advice you may have.  I know the basics and I am currently awaiting the three to adjust to Roo’s scent.  I am also waiting three more weeks to really dive in.  (Roo and Pilget were just fixed a week ago).  So they are still recovering and Roo’s hormones need to die down a bit.

Thanks everyone,

Jamie

**I will add Photos at a later date

[LongEaredLions]

I am not much of a bonding expert, though I do have a trio and will be adding a fourth soon.
I know of two members on here who have large bonded groups of bunnies. Tanlover 14, who has six bonded buns, and MoveDiagonally who I believe has 5. Hopefully they will comment, and if not I am sure they won’t mind if you PM them.

[Hazel]

Welcome!

I didn’t notice anything in your post about weather or not Piglet and Roo are spayed/neutered? If they aren’t, you will have to get them both done before you do any bonding. The most pressing concern here is of course preventing a litter. They will go at it if you put them together, the fact that they are siblings won’t stop them.

Also, unfixed rabbits are sadly not bonding material. Their hormones make them unpredictable. I know you said that Pandi and Piglet live together without any problems but even if there has been no hormonal behavior in the past, they can flip that switch from one second to the other and then you might have a nasty fight on your hands. If Piglet is intact, that might also explain Penny’s annoying behavior towards her and Pandi which you said is the reason he can’t live in the same cage with them.

If they are fixed, just forget everything I said!  I wish you all the best for your bonding adventure. As LEL has said, we have several members here who have successfully bonded large groups and I’m sure they will be happy to help.

[Hazel]

Well, I just saw where you said they are fixed… Sorry about that.

[Mat & Jamie]

Hey you guys I wanted to do a quick update. We had brief setback with the binding process this week. We separated Pandi and Piglet into different cages so Piglet can heal up from her spay. We had to separate them because Pandi kept trying to bite piglets incision. We kept them in separate, but right next to each other for a week and a half. Then when we tried to reintroduce them back into the same cage. Pandi started biting Piglet. We have since started working on rebonding then. They are getting along outside of their cages again. Today we are going to try and reintroduce their pens again. I’ll be home all day to observe and to stop fighting if it occurs.

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