Neutered bunny extremely jealous of new unspayed bunny and is losing interest in food even treats

[frenchfried]

My 2 y.o. is acting really jealous of the new girl,  (approx 1 y.o.) I brought home for him.  Today is he quite upset, barely touched his morning salad and the pellets that are usually gone by now are still there.  

He is neutered and she is unspayed.  

I would have never ever brought home an unfixed rabbit that he didn’t pick out himself, but I guess she was a bunn in dire straits.  Also, fyi, I have never bonded bunnies before although I’ve bonded hamsters lol.  

I got her from a neighbor.  I saw her living conditions: outside dog kennel encrusted in fecal matter, placed in an outdoor dog/cat run – very small by the way as they have an indoor ginormo beast of a dog which I swear is longer than I am tall!  The parents explained to me how they were worried about the pack of coyotes visiting their back yard and how scared she was for their bunn but also how she stays outside unless its raining!!  They brought her in when it would rain but not usually.  They were also feeding her chinchilla food.  She looked terrified of the small kids and the older ones weren’t interested in her. 

I brought her home and my little guy was ecstatic – at first.  Within an hour of her here, they touched noses (through condo bars), he kept grooming her face and doing this binky straight up into the air right after.  Turns out she was biting his face after each groom and that was the just kidding/no thank you/I’m sorry leap he does.  Over the next two days still curious about her he slipped past the gate as I was exiting and she attacked him.  

Now he refuses to go into the bedroom where her temporary setup is; he won’t even hang out with me in “our” bed.  Today he ate only a few nibbles of his salad and I was trying to get him to eat his favorite treats but he ignored me but eventually ate the treats when my back was turned. LOL.  He is so cute.  I think I understand what he wants me to do; “get rid of her or I will ignore you.”

What can I do other than hang a sheet over her condo?  She’s loud and has a type B personality (relaxed, theoretically easy going with me and should be sans hormones, not very interested/scared of the vacuum cleaner).  She’s thrilled to be here, every other step is a binky.  

He is a total Type B personality and is somewhat anxious (ex: really scared of vacuum cleaner and loud noises and stays nervous after the disturbance has passed).  None of my friends will/can take her temporarily while we get her hormonal issues sorted due to allergies, distance issues.  I don’t have an attached garage so I can’t move her condo and set up a run out there.  

My goal is to bond them after after her spay and hormones are gone, but will there even be a chance now since he is upset over her being here now?  Hypothetically that would be 6 or 7 weeks from now.   I’m not sure where to keep her; she’s in the bedroom (in a 3×2 condo, I also let her run around for a few hours) and I know my main guy doesn’t like the fence being up (he grabs it with his teeth and shakes it as hard as he can), her scent is all over the bedroom and she peed all over his favorite spots to hang out.  In our small 1 bedroom apartment, hes been outted to occupy the kitchen and living area – she’s not allowed in there – but he used to love to hang out with me in the bedroom while I get ready for bed and watch tv.  

Any responses would be much appreciated.  Anyone have experience with this??  I don’t want to have to relinquish her to a shelter or even give her away permanently but I was starting to think that I may have to!?!  

I’m so upset that my little guy is so unhappy.

[Ruby n Max]

First, I am so glad you took her in! That is so awesome of you! We found one of our rabbits abandoned in a park when he was only 4 months old, my guess he was an Easter dump. Which means he also was not fixed, while my other rabbits were. So I hear ya on that.

I am also glad you are getting her fixed. That will help tremendously. For now continue to keep them separated, and if she can nip him through the fence, zip tie some cardboard to it to prevent any issues. This is so that they won’t make any more negative memories, which can hamper the bonding process. I know it stinks so much to keep them like this, especially when your little man is used to having free run of the apartment. But, it will make a huge difference in the end if you guys can stick it out for the next 2 months, which I know is a long time, but it is worth it.

My rabbits did the same thing, yarded on the fence and raised a ruckus about the whole space-restriction thing. Unfortunately I waited a little too long to do this, and now I am having some trouble getting them to bond. They are taking a long time to do it, and it is exhausting, but I have seen improvements and I know that they will get along. Eventually. So, don’t worry about them, they don’t know that what you are doing is for their best interest.

As far as the eating thing goes, you are right, he does sound jealous. He sounds a little ticked about being attacked, but he will calm down soon and will eat more again. As long as he is continuing to take in food/water and is pottying normally, I wouldn’t worry too much, my rabbits have done the same thing before. They are just protesting. If he doesn’t resume eating normally after a day or two, I would get him checked out at the vet just to be sure he is not injured. In the mean time, try placating him with a new toy and extra attention.

For when you get to the point of bonding, there are several resources out there to check out.

http://www.thebunnyguru.com/care-guide/bunny-bonding/
rabbit.org (search “bonding”)
Binky bunny has their own page on bonding, and, as you have seen, this forum has a lot of tips to mull over.

Good luck and let us know how it goes!

[Megabunny]

One of our members…Tanlover…has a web site but as usual, I can’t remember the exact name(something like week week thump but I’m sure that’s not exactly it.
She sounds like such a happy girl it makes ME happy just reading your post. I had a bun who kept attacking through the wire, but they did work it out in time but I agree you’ll probably do ok with putting up a barrier for now. I’m sure others will have more ideas. There are things I’ve read very recently like rubbing a towel on the private area of them and putting it in with the other or swapping litter boxes, though I’d be a nervous wreck to try that if my bun was well litter trained, though being unspayed she may not be, but I’m guessing your male is. All the best. They both sound like wonderful buns so I hope this all works out before too long. It should help to have the female spayed, though he thing I’m thinking is that some females need time to calm down after a spay but I don’t THINK it’s necessarily the FULL month like it is with males.

[JackRabbit]

If your boy is easily stressed and has already had a run in with the new bun, I would keep them completely separated for now, separate rooms (I know its a pain) to give her a chance to settle in and give both a chance to “forget” the other bunny. Once she is spayed and her hormones have died down, she will have a little different scent. At that point you could try swapping litterboxes, beds, even cages, and could try putting their cages near each other (at least a few inches apart). With your boy bun getting stressed easily, you want to keep a close eye on his eating/pooping. There are so many views on bonding — go slowly, stress bonding, marathon bonding. Every bonding experience is different so trial and error is all you can do. Tanlover14’s web site is wheekwheekthump.com, and she’s been very successful with bunny bonding (stress bonding and marathon bonding). Another BBer, Retrosquid, is in the process of gently bonding his trio (doesn’t want to stress his bunny Link since Link has been through so much). I think his thread on bonding (in process now) is called something like “lets give this bonding thing a …”. Might be worth giving these, as, well as bonding info in the Bunny info section here a read. Also, when you get to the bonding point, there are quite a few members who have been through bonding their bunnies and all are wonderful people and can give you advice and let you know what they found through their experiences.

[frenchfried]

Hey everyone, thanks for all the helpful replies! 

I give him a lot of one on one attention and love when she’s in her condo or if we’re outside of the bedroom and at first it was as if he was trying to tell me, “I’m glad you’re nice n I love you!” because he did tons of side flops, a lot more than usual, onto my hand or arm or foot etc. with a lot of purring. He did start eating again and reverted back to being totally interested in her lol. Thank goodness!!

She also seems interested but she goes a little overboard. He will be stretched out lying right outside of the fence near her and she will run frantically back and forth in vain trying to get to him.

I also set up a communal litterbox (right outside her condo and right next to her personal litterbox) because they were starting to have poop/pee wars.  (She has the bedroom during the day but is locked in her condo overnight and then he gets free reign of everything at night.)  When I was cleaning up somebunn’s pee, I was putting the dirtied paper towels in an extra one and noticed that she got in there and peed right on the soiled towels lol.  

I also have to tell you guys about this new thing they do where they smash their foreheads together across the fence wanting to be groomed by each other but of course no one gives in. So I started to stick my fingers in there to pet them at the same time or use her little lopear if in a good position to “pet” him with it. They start tooth purring together and it seems to be making good memories as they keep doing the forehead smashing thing a lot just these past few days. LOL.  My boy, Bj, will also give her a few licks and kisses on her ear or head after. Sometimes she will nibble around his face but will add a bite but I think he knows what to expect as he’s very casual about it now! 

I hope she will calm down! Her social cues seem to be off and she has bad bunny manners when she interacts with Bj lol. She also pees tons in her litterbox, I have to change it everyday because the pellets become so saturated and become a load of dust by bedtime – not part of the box but all of it (I usually totally change his every 3 days).  Is this part of being intact?

Also what kind of pain killers works best? Or should i start a new thread on this.  I read something about this after Bj was neutered, I thought it was in an article by Dana Krempels but cannot find it anymore.  He was in an immense amount of pain after his neuter and the trip to start recovery took over a week.

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